What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2010 version)

Went to Sylvan Lake, like last year. (Well, like every year, really.) Pros: No vehicle breakdowns this time. Cons: Smoke. *cough cough* The smoke drifting in from the forest fires in BC was so bad, it actually turned a sunny day into a cloudy one.

Next: Calgary. Yes, an Edmontonian can go to Calgary without being afraid to admit it. It's just important to leave Calgary again. The trip to the zoo was especially for my youngest daughter, so she could see real “tigas,” “elfints” and “zeebas”. Her big sister liked the playground best--no manure smell. As for me, well, I just went for the food.

I had my 25th high school reunion. It was a mindbending blast from the past, catching up with people I haven’t seen since high school. Others (like Eric in the picture), I lost touch with in the middle of undergrad years at university. Unfortunately, some old friends couldn’t make it to the get-togethers, but I was able to get in touch with them again via Facebook. (Yay, Facebook! Have you heard about it yet?)

Took my wife to the Lady Gaga concert. Had pretty lousy seats, but they were better than the ones that Calgary got. Bazinga! (Her tour didn't,um, stop in Calgary.) If you look really closely at the crappy photo I took using my crappy cell phone, you can see two blobs. One is Gaga, the other is the beautiful tongue of fire rising from her piano as she sang Speechless. Yes, I need a new cell phone.

Do I have to list all the Edmonton festivals I went to? Nah. You know all about those, right?

Beyond that, hmm, let's see: the usual collection of birthday parties, days in the park, BBQs with friends. Got an MRI on my knee. Woot! Sadly, it didn't leave me with any super powers.

And work, of course. There's always work (so, it wasn't completely a summer vacation, was it?). Instead of writing new lectures, I decided to improve the ones I've got. Although--I did come up with a new mini-lecture, by special request and...well, that's another blog entry.

Now, I've got a couple of questions: What did you do on your summer vacation?

Why aren't you studying?

4 comments:

Anastasia said...
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I took a spring course with one Dr.Loepelmann...it was something or other about cognition...

Karsten A. Loepelmann said...
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@Anastasia: "something or other"? Grr! Don't make me retroactively knock your grade down. Because, y'know, I can't.

Amanda said...
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I worked in a healthcare facility for the summer. It was great experience in clinical aspects of healthcare. Super loved it! Didn't get to go anywhere, though - but wouldn't have traded this experience for anything.
So... in regards to ergonomics and design - what do you think of the latest report by BP on their oil spill? Do you think they had some human factors psychologists helping with the report, and would that have made a difference with the evaluation of their design flaws?

Karsten A. Loepelmann said...
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@Amanda: It's good to hear you found a job that gave you some real-world experience.

I'm not interested in anything BP puts out. I'm going to wait for more independent third-party analyses, and see the extent to which the systems approach/systems engineering can explain what happened. And how to prevent this from happening again.

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