National Life Jacket Day

May 20th last week was Red Cross National Lifejacket Day. I didn't hear anything about this occasion until late that night. Coincidentally, on the same day there was an unfortunate accident on Echo Lake in south eastern Saskatchewan. A group of school students was out on the lake when two of the canoes capsized due to sudden winds. One of the students that ended up in the cold water was not wearing a life jacket or PFD and apparently needed to be resuscitated by the RCMP. Thankfully, everyone was eventually OK though 4 students were treated at hospital for hypothermia (they were in the water for an hour).

So, with that event calling to attention the importance of PFDs, I received a phone call from CBC television the following morning, asking to talk to me about life jackets. I am the "Publicity Director" for the Saskatoon Canoe Club and I guess based on that they figured I was the guy to talk to. Coincidentally, I was home with nothing better to do than to build a deck (my daughter was in daycare for the day). After discussing the issue of paddlers and life jackets on the phone for a few minutes, they asked if I would be willing to do an on-camera interview. I agreed and 90 minutes later I was down at the boathouse.

The reporter and cameraman chatted for a bit, asking general questions about the SCC, it's policies, and it's equipment. The cameraman recorded a ton of video throughout, then they did a 3 or 4 minute interview. The questions were pretty straight-forward, and I answered as best as I could. One question threw me off a bit though - they asked if there was a story I could share relating to when I was thankful to be wearing a PFD. Of course, there are several things I could have mentioned (wiping out in Farside with Rob, wiping out in Corner Rapids with Rob photographing, wiping out with Rob....), but the only thing I could think of immediately was some lame story about the first time I went down Otter Rapids - I was so excited to be running the rapids that I had completely forgotten to zip up & buckle my life jacket. At the end of the interview she asked if there was anything else I would like to add. Of course, I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

It was only later while I was out for a paddle on the river that a whole host of ideas came to mind. I should have talked about proper PFD care (keep it out of sunlight, treat it with a protectant such as 303, clean it, dry it, check for damage, check it's buoyancy, check for breakdown of the fabric, and replace it when it's old), getting proper paddling skills, having the right equipment on board, wearing the right clothing, dressing for immersion, being aware of the weather and your surroundings, and not over-estimating one's skills. They were still at the boathouse filming extra footage so I stopped back in and talked to the reporter about my concerns. They were willing to re-shoot the interview, but advised me that they thought what they had was good enough, that it was PFD's specifically they were most interested in, and that the segment was going to be severely edited anyway.

So, I got back into the kayak and continued my paddle. The cameraman was in the area shooting for about an hour, shooting film inside the boathouse of the equipment, taking close-ups of the PFDs, shooting film of me paddling off into the high winds and chop on the river, etc.

When I later saw the video, I was rather surprised to have seen my interview cut down to that one lame story. You can find the video at http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Local_News/Saskatchewan/ID=1500771460. Early in the piece are several kayakers shown out on the water without PFDs. One of them is Jimmy. It looks like he might even be teaching some lessons, something I would hope he would have better sense than to be doing without a PFD, especially on such a windy day on the river (perhaps that footage was shot some other time).

The news video also shows a fellow who talks about mandatory wearing of PFDs, something that has been coming up recently. I certainly hope the lawmakers in Canada do not decide to go that route. Although I am a strong advocate of proper PFD use, I believe people should be able to use their own judgement based on the conditions in which they are paddling. Perhaps it should be mandatory for school groups or situations involving groups of kids, but there are situations where I do not feel it necessary to have mine on at all times (calm waters, warm water, no kids on board, etc.)

Exploding Beer, Part II

The following was written a couple of years ago, but never finished and so never published.

I had my second exploding beer experience this evening and for the second time I have coated the exposed floor joists above a furnace room with yeast-laden beer. This evening's experience, thankfully, wasn't near the mess or volume (in both senses of the word) as last time.

A few years ago I decided to brew a nice strong beer well in advance of Christmas, a "fallen angel trippel" (trippel=knock you on your ass) from Paddockwood Brewing. This "christmas beer" was flavoured with lots of tasty chunks of orange peel and numerous spices. Since a trippel is a big strong beer finishing out at over 10% alcohol, a helluva pile of strong healthy yeast is required so that they are so busy they can rip through all that candy sugar-supplemented malt and race to the finish before they even notice that they fermented themselves into a toxic concoction of their own waste byproducts (ironically, ethanol, that lovely waste product of fermentation, is toxic to yeast). In order to get so many yeast just rarin' to go, I started with a sort of mini batch of beer (ie a starter). Once that was growing nicely, I then tossed those billions of happily churning and very active fungi into the larger 5 gallon batch of my christmas beer, slapped the airlock on and forgot about it for a few hours. At some point in the day I checked on the beer and was amazed to see how quickly this batch of beer took off (I know that was my goal, but it was truly amazing to see) with a nice bit of foam (krausen) accumulating on the surface, the beer churning violently within from the yeast activity, and the airlock nicely bubbling away. Happy that things were proceeding so well, I returned upstairs for lunch. I think I was enjoying a nice rye bread sandwich when I heard it. A giant "WOOP!" from the basement, followed by a steady "fwoosh". I flew down the stairs in time to see the last of about 3 gallons of beer foaming out the top of the carboy in a yeasty orange and spice flavoured geyser, with a judicious portion of the beer dripping from pretty much everything in the room. It seems that the krausen had risen to the airlock and began coming out of the airlock. The airlock had then become plugged with the chunks of orange peel that were in the wort, trapping the CO₂ that was being produced by the rapidly fermenting yeast (CO₂ and alcohol are the waste products of fermentation, the process by which yeast consumes sugars for energy in the absence of O₂). Not only did that begin to build up pressure behind the airlock, but it also caused a good deal of the CO₂ to go into solution (just as it does when carbonating the beer after bottling). That pressure just continued to build up in the carboy until it released with a dramatic explosion, perhaps a couple of hours after first becoming plugged. The pressure in the airspace of the carboy caused the initial loud noise I heard and shot the airlock and carboy to the ceiling, with a good measure of the krausen to boot. Immediately after the explosion and the release of the pressure, an awful lot of CO₂ came suddenly out of solution. This then caused the subsequent geyser of wort shooting out of the carboy and the loss of gallons of precious Belgian beer. Not to mention more mess.

Other than losing about half of my batch of beer, and making a sticky mess of my basement storage room, the beer itself suffered no ill effects. It finished out at a respectably high alcohol content of over 10%, and tasted great after it had over a year to age. As I recall, it was a little rough the first Christmas, but mellowed a lot with lots of time and was excellent by it's second Christmas. Such a big beer with a high alcohol content is not something you want to drink "green", but rather is to be put away to the back of the storage room and forgotten about for a very long time.

This evening's explosion was similar, but smaller in every way. I did not notice the noise, just the mess. The airlock and bung had gone missing, having ricocheted off into some dark corner of the furnace room. The beer was "smaller" (lower sugar content in the wort and thus lower alcohol in the end product), and the pressures involved must have been lower as not nearly so much beer was lost. However, there still was a mess on the floor joists in the ceiling above.

So, having learned my lesson twice now, I really should start using a nice big blowoff tube in my carboys!

My Daughter's a Winner at Campgirlz.com

I've been meaning to post for a few months now about a new website out there called Campgirlz.com. As a father of a couple of young daughters, I'm interested in the Campgirlz website because I hope to get those daughters interested in an effort to counter the Barbie & Disney crap out there that they are exposed to. Campgirlz.com isn't just for kids though, it's targeted at female campers of all ages.

Back in April, Campgirlz.com had a photo contest. No particular criteria were imposed and my daughter & I went through our photos and picked one from last summer during our Kingsmere trip to submit (I let things get too close to the deadline and missed the opportunity to have my older daughter pick out a picture too). Well, lo & behold, she was picked as a winner! For her efforts, she won a bandanna and hat (both from Gander Mountain), a Campgirlz.com t-shirt and a pencil! She is sharing the t-shirt which was a bit large for her with her older sister.

You can find the announcement at http://www.campgirlz.com/?p=435.

L. playing with her award-winning Polly Pockets on Kingsmere Lake.

Overnighter on the Chattooga 2010

     Its a trip I have done since I was a kid.  When I first started paddling down the Chattooga it was all about me and the experience I was having.  I was completely focused on the skills I was learning, the rapids I was running, and how much fun I was having.  Now 30 years later its all about the trip as a whole.  Sure I want to have a good time but seeing every body else have a great time is as important if not more so and in that experience I am having the time of my life.

  

     Except for a few folks having to miss the trip it went off without a hitch and that is an understatement.  Saturday morning it was a little drizzly, grey, and cool, but as soon as we rolled into South Carolina the skies began to clear.  We rolled down the windows to the LL van for some warm breezes.  It really started to feel like summer was just a day or two away.

    We had a very mixed crew ranging in age from 1 to nearly 50.  Paddling experiences from total beginner to grizzled veterans.   Now that Liquidlogic is turning 10 years old its cool to have so many different options of boats for people to paddle.   The beginner paddlers jumped in the Remixs and Coupe sit on tops.  The veterans piled their boats high with gear for the over night trip in the Remix XP, Deuce Coupe, and I played around with a Versa Board loaded down like a barge for the trip.  We also had a double duck to take the smallest kid in, and a raft for the floating imagination island of the young boys.

     Of course it was fun to watch the boys play "lord of the flies" on the raft but a really cool thing to watch develop over the two days was Vicky learning to paddle on the fly.  The two day trip starts with very easy whitewater and lots of flatwater which was perfect because she was able to learn her strokes very well and get a feel for how the Remix 59 turns and travels through the water.  Day two picks up quite a bit with more whitewater and faster moving current and she handled it all incredibly well.   In fact towards the end of day two is a section with a couple of really rapids and she walked back up to run Dicks Creek Ledge (a nice easy class 3 drop at this level) a second time just for fun.

The above shot is Vicky on her first day of kayaking on Big Shoals of Section 2 of the Chattooga.

These two shots are of Dicks Creek Ledge on Section 3.

Go Vicky!

We also had a great mix of gear boats.  Nick turned his raft into a floating imagination island with a mountain of gear in the middle.  Betsy loaded up a Deuce Coupe sit on top with gear for two, beers and chocolate milk for everybody else.  Polk loaded up his Ducky for the entire family.  Maria and Elsy took the Remix XPs down with loaded hatches and I piled a bunch of gear on top of the Versa Board to see how it would handle a load.

     

Oh and lets not forget food.  The only way to have a great overnighter or multi day trip is with good food.  Nick made an awesome Dahl Bhat dinner with Nan and we cooked up Blueberry pancakes and scrambles for breakfast.  Throw in some good lunches and beverages and you have the perfect trip topper.  I think next time we really need to make it three or four days.

Some day make it a priority to go spend the weekend out, with sand between your toes, and the sounds of the river putting you to sleep.

Here is a slide show of all the photos from the trip.
Enjoy
Shane

Activity Theory: Keynote at a conference at the Aalto University

Keynote Presentation at FISCAR 2010 at Aalto University, Helsinki

Prof M P Ranjan

Raindrops & Footprints: Reflections on Design enabled development models for India.
Prof M P Ranjan
National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad, India

Image 01: Screen shots of the visual presentation used to support the keynote lecture at the FISCAR 2010 conference in Helsinki.

Abstract of paper prepared for a keynote presentation at the Nordic Conference on Activity Theory and the Fourth Finnish Conference on Cultural and Activity Research “Perspectives on social creativity, designing and activity” to be held at Helsinki from 23 to 25 May 2010

The author has been a design teacher at the National Institute of Design from the early 1970’s and has been involved in the teaching of design theory as well as conducting design research in the areas of industrial design for development with numerous experiences in the small scale and craft based production situations in India. Much of his professional and educational initiatives are focused on using traditional craft skills that are an abundant ability in India as a development resource that could address severe problems of poverty and unemployment in vast areas of rural India. Each design project experience conducted over the years offered new insights into the complex problems that were being faced by professionals trying to intervene in the sectors of need in India and these insights were translated into visual models that were used to inform students as well as future initiatives in these sectors.

The subject of this conference gives us the opportunity to reflect on these series of insights and to map out the contours of the theory of design based crafts interventions that emerged from the National Institute of Design over the past 50 years of exploration and design action in the field. The author’s personal background of having been born into a family of a craftsman carpenter who later built his business enterprise in the manufacture of wooden toys and furniture for children provides an extended backdrop for this investigation and reflection into the models for development that emerged and were tested through repeated interventions in the field. These refined and partly validated models are offered here with historical and personal references to the numerous projects that helped shape the insights and the specific models of development that have gone to create the “Macro – Micro Strategy for Development” that has been used to build a sustainable village based enterprise that is currently in progress as a test case in the bamboo based enterprises in the State of Tripura in Northeastern India. Each project experience brought in specific insights that are expanded and detailed to give a framework for the theory that has informed our actions over the years.

Learning from the field has been a much repeated mantra at the NID and its education slogan has always been “learning by doing” which in turn meant that those of us who lived and worked at the Institute were privy to hundreds, if not thousands of individual projects, all of which brought back fresh insights that we hope these reflections will reveal at least in part. There is an underlying theory that emerged and it will the attempt of this paper to try and articulate some of the contours of this theory by using the models that have emerged over the years and those that were used in the classes through which generations of NID students have been trained.

The paper will be supported by specific case studies to summarise the progressive findings from the field based experiences and the intermediate and cumulative strategies that were adopted for the numerous field based interventions carried out by the author and his colleagues at NID in the area of design for development. The paper will be accompanied by a visual presentation that would provide visual evidence of the context as well as the design offerings and alongside this will be the theory and the models and strategy diagrams that emerged as an outcome of these investigations, specifically those that were used to advocate future action in the field.

Download Full Text of presentation here as a pdf file 248 kb size

Download Visual presentation as a pdf file 8.3 mb size

Download Voice file of the keynote lecture as an mp3 file 45 MB size

Prof M P Ranjan

Activity Theory: Keynote at a conference at the Aalto University

Keynote Presentation at FISCAR 2010 at Aalto University, Helsinki

Prof M P Ranjan

Raindrops & Footprints: Reflections on Design enabled development models for India.

Prof M P Ranjan
National Institute of Design
Ahmedabad, India

Image 01: Screen shots of the visual presentation used to support the keynote lecture at the FISCAR 2010 conference in Helsinki.

Abstract of paper prepared for a keynote presentation at the Nordic Conference on Activity Theory and the Fourth Finnish Conference on Cultural and Activity Research “Perspectives on social creativity, designing and activity” to be held at Helsinki from 23 to 25 May 2010

The author has been a design teacher at the National Institute of Design from the early 1970’s and has been involved in the teaching of design theory as well as conducting design research in the areas of industrial design for development with numerous experiences in the small scale and craft based production situations in India. Much of his professional and educational initiatives are focused on using traditional craft skills that are an abundant ability in India as a development resource that could address severe problems of poverty and unemployment in vast areas of rural India. Each design project experience conducted over the years offered new insights into the complex problems that were being faced by professionals trying to intervene in the sectors of need in India and these insights were translated into visual models that were used to inform students as well as future initiatives in these sectors.

The subject of this conference gives us the opportunity to reflect on these series of insights and to map out the contours of the theory of design based crafts interventions that emerged from the National Institute of Design over the past 50 years of exploration and design action in the field. The author’s personal background of having been born into a family of a craftsman carpenter who later built his business enterprise in the manufacture of wooden toys and furniture for children provides an extended backdrop for this investigation and reflection into the models for development that emerged and were tested through repeated interventions in the field. These refined and partly validated models are offered here with historical and personal references to the numerous projects that helped shape the insights and the specific models of development that have gone to create the “Macro – Micro Strategy for Development” that has been used to build a sustainable village based enterprise that is currently in progress as a test case in the bamboo based enterprises in the State of Tripura in Northeastern India. Each project experience brought in specific insights that are expanded and detailed to give a framework for the theory that has informed our actions over the years.

Learning from the field has been a much repeated mantra at the NID and its education slogan has always been “learning by doing” which in turn meant that those of us who lived and worked at the Institute were privy to hundreds, if not thousands of individual projects, all of which brought back fresh insights that we hope these reflections will reveal at least in part. There is an underlying theory that emerged and it will the attempt of this paper to try and articulate some of the contours of this theory by using the models that have emerged over the years and those that were used in the classes through which generations of NID students have been trained.

The paper will be supported by specific case studies to summarise the progressive findings from the field based experiences and the intermediate and cumulative strategies that were adopted for the numerous field based interventions carried out by the author and his colleagues at NID in the area of design for development. The paper will be accompanied by a visual presentation that would provide visual evidence of the context as well as the design offerings and alongside this will be the theory and the models and strategy diagrams that emerged as an outcome of these investigations, specifically those that were used to advocate future action in the field.

Download Full Text of presentation here as a pdf file 248 kb size

Download Visual presentation as a pdf file 8.3 mb size

Download Voice file of the keynote lecture as an mp3 file 45 MB size

Prof M P Ranjan

Another UK Revit blog appearance

Chris Senior from Revit Factory dropped me an email yesterday to say that he has started a blog called http://revitelemental.blogspot.com/.

“I’ve decided to setup this blog to discuss anything and everything Revit but primarily focussing on Revit content creation. I’ve been creating Revit families for the past 6 or 7 years and learnt a lot about what should and what shouldn’t be modelled as well as defining the appropriate level of detail. This has primarily been for Architectural firms I worked at in the past, then in more recent years for manufacturers and private companies”

As a long time user of Revit Chris has some good advice, so be sure to check his site out.