Ben's Home

Welcome,

I've been meaning to put this up for some time and have some work to do; give it a look through and please send any comments.

Updates:

7-23

Hi all, I'll be posting stuff about Endeavour's launch and my project at NASA to the Florida log but wanted to put up my first journal article. This has been in the works for a little while but I've enjoyed the process of sharing our work.

7-6

I'm going to try highlighting new additions to sprawling entries (such as Florida) to hopefully make it easier to tell when I've added stuff. I'll look into creating an RSS feed, but I highly doubt that Wisconsin supports that sort of dynamic service. Anyways, Florida continues to be sunny and NASA is going well. I caught the Cocoa Beach fireworks but otherwise didn't do too much for the Fourth. The weather made for nice bike rides on Friday and Saturday (which left me a good bit saddle-sore come Sunday) and fit perfectly with the start of the Tour.

I'm looking forward to Endeavour's launch this Saturday evening, I'll throw up some pictures on Sunday.

6-24

Florida continues to be mid-90s and humid, you really notice it on the way home since the interior of the van continues to radiate, despite the AC. I've been at NASA for a week and a half and have an update on Florida.

6-19

Things are going well in Florida, I'll be talking about that a bit later...
Germany's finally up, I apolgize for the significant delay. Said shortly, I did not have the connectivity I expected while in Germany and have been busier than planned thus far in Florida.

Also, I've gotten up for for both of Endeavour's scrubs; here's to July's attempt. I'll be at the LRO/LCROSS launch tomorrow evening (~5pm) and hope to take some good pictures. I'm really looking forward to seeing, hearing, and feeling the launch; KSC is a cool place (more on this later).

6-3

I'm in Germany and have had a few moments to update the Germany page.

5-27

I stopped home for an extended Memorial Day weekend and am now back in Madison. The final details of my trip to Germany are coming together, for more updates see my Germany page. To recap, I'll be going in G&omul;ttingen, Germany 5/30-6/10 to finish developing an internal combustion sensor. Once I'm back in Madison I'll have Wednesday to load up the van before driving to Florida. I'll drive ~16 hrs on Thursday and stay outside of Atlanta to finish the trip on Friday. The timing will be a little close because I want to see Endeavour launch on Saturday, but I'm really looking forward to the next two weeks.

5-8

Semester's just about done, four exams and one finite element project remain. In reference to 3/19, my site is now mostly w3c-strict compliant, any remaining isses are intentional and allowable under transitional. Most importantly, my non-Firefox using friends will now have the same experience as Firefox users. I'll be doing some major studying tomorrow and Sunday and hopefully making a MintyBoost over this coming week to power and recharge stuff on my flights to and from Germany.

5-3

Semester's gone by real quickly and this last week of school will be just as busy. It's nice to have only three assignments and exam studying this coming week. After exams I'll head home for a few days before returning to Madison to prepare for a week in Germany. I'll be traveling to Göttingen, Germany to construct and debug a source and sensor for LaVision, GmbH; see Professional for more info. I'll be spending my summer in Florida at Kennedy Space Center with Dr. Priscilla Elfrey working on the Modeling and Simulation Team. In addition to my project I hope to gain a better appreciation for the various facets of engineering research as applied to space applications; this should help narrow down the graduate school choice. I also hope that STS-125, servicing the Hubble, is delayed until I arrive at the Cape in mid June and that I am able to see the first Ares I test in July. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to this summer.

I've added to my professional page and described Split Key in my first projects entry.

3-19

I primarily use Firefox and still need to account for Internet Explorer's unique behavior or my lack of skills; we'll see if it renders any better in IE 8. It should look like this:

3-18

Discovery's docked, St. Patrick's day was beautiful, and Spring Break is half over... Mike details what incredible duplicity may await future college students if a certain music-tax plan is pushed through (or included in the ACTA agreement). I'm hoping to head back to Wausau this weekend for some Spring skiing, but that depends on making significant homework progress tomorrow... we'll see. My runs on Monday and Tuesday were great and this weekend is looking good, I should be in moderate shape for Crazylegs next month.

3-16

I'm staying in Madison for spring break, it's been a busy semester. I've been meaning to put this site together for a while and should have the first version done this wednesday. Aside from the website I'll spend some time working and hopefully update the ZeroG website. We're predicted to hit 72 degrees tomorrow, a run is mandatory. I read Carl Shirky's piece on the revoluiton in print media and suggest it to anyone interested in the future.