Blogs

Many years ago I was involved in a cool music project that I am now getting ready to pursue again with updated technology. So what did I do many years ago? A friend of mine in Miami created a transparent flute made of Lexan–a touch space-age plastic. It wasn’t cheap, they keys were gold plated. …

Continue reading “Color… Music… Are They Related”

I struggled in Fall 2022. It seems that many of my students forgot how to be students. One class in particular was rude and ralked a lot. I have never had to tell a class to stop talking. I attribute this to the fact that many of them started college during lock down. But now …

Continue reading “Spring 2023 is a New Day”

Another hurricane has passed through Orlando. Fortunately it weakened before it got here and the winds were about 70 miles per hours. Several houses in my neighborhood flooded, but my house had no damage. My electricity and internet blinked for a couple of seconds but held on. I am really lucky. Some of my students …

Continue reading “Hurricane Ian”

Today was the second day of Fall semester 2022 at University of Central Florida. I am teaching a total of four classes. The enrollment for my classes are 297, 90, 232, and 158. That’s a lot of students for one semester. I do enjoy large classes, though, and I have enough TAs for it to …

Continue reading “The Semester Started”

I lived in North Carolina many years. My days started with sitting of the porch, drinking coffee, thinking about the day, and listening to the birds. We lived on the edge of woods, so there were MANY birds singing in the morning. I called it the symphony of birds. It lasted for several hours. Now …

Continue reading “Symphony of Birds”

I have sponsored a number of music projects for students. I teach a two-semester capstone sequence where students work in teams of 5 on a single project. The projects I have sponsored are Composition Today (CompositionToday.net), a tribute to John Cage, computer assisted EDM creation, color rendering of music, and BrainBeats system for generating music …

Continue reading “Thoughts For Today”

I walk a lot. One of the places I like to walk is the Econ River Wilderness area. The corner of it is on North Tanner and McCulloch, less than a mile from UCF. Most of the trailers are through forests or shrubs. About 1.2 miles in, if you continue walking east, you come to …

Continue reading “Times Gone By”

It is cold in Florida. January and February are usually the times we get cold weather. This morning it was 36 degrees Fahrenheit. I had wanted to go snorkeling in preparation for a scuba class. On Thursday and Friday it should warm up to the 70s in the afternoon, so I will put on a …

Continue reading “Weather and Fitness”

One of the funniest pranks I ever pulled was when I was treasurer of the Dade Atari User’s Group (DAUG). Those were the days when Compute magazine had home-grown programs that were featured in the magazine that you could download. There was one named Astro-Panic that was pretty nice and well commented. Now let me …

Continue reading “Funny Prank”

Now that Fall 2021 semester has wound down, it’s time for some perspective. I allocated several days (including today) for doing nothing but thinking. I teach a class named Processes of Objected Oriented Software (COP 4331). I have been teaching this class for six years. When we went virtual I noticed a gradual downturn in …

Continue reading “Winter Break Perspective”

I’m in my third year of teaching senior design. It’s been a lot of fun. Last week I met with all 26 of my senior design 1 teams for a status check. Most of them are doing very well. Some are exceptional. And unfortunately, there are a few weak groups. Next week I meet with …

Continue reading “Senior Design”

I teach several classes at University of Central Florida in which I need to know current development technologies. Right now I am learning Angular 10. Very few students use this JavaScript framework now, but I feel like I need to know it in order to provide a balanced approach. This underscores one aspect of my …

Continue reading “Angular 10”

I have a regular exercise routine on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I jog for a mile or two, I run sprints, and then I lift weights. This has helped me lean down and gain strength over the last six months. I have had to buy a lot of dumbbells since the gyms are closed. My …

Continue reading “22,500 Steps”

I just finished Brian Tracey’s book on goals. It’s short, but summarizes an approach to setting and maintaining goals. His ideas make sense, and I’m going to follow them throughout this summer (Summer 2020). Let’s see what kind of results I get. Zig Ziglar has a goals book that’s also good. I read it many …

Continue reading “Goals”

My efforts to find a literary agent for my novel Birth of Jai continues. There are many literary agencies, most of which have a number of agents. To effectively query the agency takes time. I start by studying the agency and learn about it to see if it’s a good match for my novel and …

Continue reading “Finding an Agent”

Yesterday I wen to the beach for the first time in quite a while. There were quite a few people there, but by no means packed. The weather was beautiful and the water very pleasant. Taking the time to drive to Cocoa beach and back plus the time at the beach cut into my work …

Continue reading “Back to the Beach”

I recently wrote a novel named Birth of Jai. I am now looking for an agent. I wrote a program that helps automate the query process, and records everything in a local database. I think the story is really cool. The synopsis is below. Birth of Jai Synopsis James Tekmas is a brilliant graduate student …

Continue reading “Birth of Jai”

I have an ambitious set of objectives for this summer. The two top priorities are physical fitness and UCF instruction. I plan to lose body fat and gain strength. I developed a plan with which I can lose the blubber and increase muscle. (I know people say you can’t do both, but in the past …

Continue reading “Summer of ’20”

I moved my website to a new server and lost all of my old blog content. I will post here on a regular basis, and keep everyone updated on what’s going on.