A Few Weeks of Wandering Around the Bay Area

Hi Putzy-People,

I am sadly lacking in machine shops out here, so I've been entertaining myself in other ways.  On my second day on the west coast I trecked from San Francisco up to Mare Island to watch the taping of the new season of Battlebots (go Charles!).  I also saw Jaguar, Jume, and other friends up there.  No pictures though, because it's all super secret and I forgot to take pictures anyway.

On my first weekend here I acquired a road bike through craigslist.  I bought it from a very friendly Google employee who went so far as to grease everything and check all the bolts with a torque wrench before parting with it.  Hopefully I won't get too attached to it and can sell it again at the end of the summer.

Went on a nice and foggy memorial day ride across the Golden Gate Bridge and around Hawk Hill.

The next Saturday I met up with Wesley in Orinda, and hiked up and down Mt. Diablo.  Wesley was kind enough to not leave me in the dust, but I was pretty wrecked by the end.

Part way up:

At the top, me looking somewhat delirious:

I've done some hanging out in Glen Canyon Park.  Pretty cool place in the middle of San Francisco:

Last Saturday I biked to Muir Woods.  

Beginning the winding descent to the entrance.  Had a minor incident on the way down involving an abrupt and very wet corner, but both my bike and myself came out relatively unscathed:

Big trees.  Too many people:

Fortunately the people were quickly escaped. 

Here's the only ben katz selfie ever taken.  You'll probably never see another one, so enjoy it.

how does this work?

Hey, it's Ames St!

Other activities of interest:

I turned 21 and went on a coffee-bar crawl with Katie, Yo, and Rodrigo.  I had 5 good espressos at 5 different coffee places around the Mission.  My mental acuity was relatively uncompromised.

Work at the moment involves 80% doing modeling and data analysis in matlab, and 20% running drive unit (what Tesla  calls the inverter, motor, gearbox, and differential assembly) tests in the dynamometer lab.  The dyno lab is a pretty cool place.  There are dozens of in-house designed 90-kW power supplies, which can source or sink the 90-kW. Most of the dynos use three of these.  There are dyno control stations with giant 4k monitors, running kind of derpy NI software.  And motors everywhere.  Sadly I don't get to touch any of the hardware, as all that work is done by full-time technicians.  

I sit right next to the motor design team and across from some motor control folks, so I get to absorb their motor-talk while I work.  I don't think I've ever heard the word "flux" with such frequency before.

Until next time!