Well, I have survived week one in corporate America! the work we are doing is very cool....although I am still getting used to the grey cubicle-ness!

Portland is pretty amazing. Mt. Hood is visible from downtown on a clear day and it's so magical to round the corner on a highway and suddenly see this snowcapped mountain looming over the city. The neighborhoods are varied and interesting to walk in.

Below, you see the row of townhouses where I live and the amazing sunsets we can see off the balcony. We are at the edge of the urban growth boundary and there are rolling farmlands just across the road.

Tomorrow, I head to the woods, pictures of the NW forest to follow!

End of week 1 and oh the sunsets!

What's a gay pride parade without Barbies kissing! (center of photo)
Property J. Kimel

Portland Building by M. Graves-who is that woman!?
Addendum: Apparently, that woman is Portlandia, "sculpted by Raymond Kaskey. It's the second largest copper statue in the country, second to the Statue of Liberty. In some way, Portlandia is supposed to represent the spirit of Portland. The face on the figure was modeled by Kaskey's wife," according to long time Portland resident, cousin Jordan!
Property J. Kimel

Cool fountain!
Property J. Kimel

That's Mt. Hood on the right! (I think..)
Property J. Kimel

Boys/girls?
Property J. Kimel

Boys doing a cheer!
Property J. Kimel

Going up from the Train, they don't give you floors, they tell you how far underground you are!
Property J. Kimel

The colors of Portland

Well, today had even more interesting sights to offer. Namely, the people of Portland! I've never seen so many tattoos! I decided to experience the train today since traffic has been so bad. Really nice, clean and nobody ever came to check my ticket. How's that for the honor system? The city is very vibrant and lively, even on a Sunday. Fun to see so many people wandering so many streets. A pleasant change from Atlanta in that respect. (oh and it's not 1000% humidity!)

On my way to the amazing Powell's book store, I ran smack into the gay pride parade. Wow! So many happy and colorful people! Even Starbucks had a float. Oh, how progressive. A few pictures below. What an amazing place for people watching! Powell's, by the way, has a pretty decent selection of ID books and they are open online if you need anything!

I took a walk after that and ended up seeing the Portland Building by none other than Michael Graves. Interesting, but not my cup o'tea. Too linear. And this crazy HUGE statue looming over the front. Not sure who she is.

I wandered to the Saturday market which is chock full of art and music and more colorful Portland residents. Finally, I took a train to a big inner city park with miles of forested walking trails. But I was tired! So I didn't walk too far. They do have a peaceful Vietnam Memorial Garden.

Fact of the day: No sales tax (ever) in Portland! Wheee!
Enjoy the photos!

Country shed
Property J. Kimel

Wildflowers
Property J. Kimel

Portland Vista
Property J. Kimel

Portland!!

Well, it is June 18, and a long time since I 'blogged.' Instead of sending out mass emails and clogging your inbox with pictures, I thought I'd post information here!

Kirby is now a true travler, he was amazing on the plane and has been a real trooper. The roommate's cat is not yet with us, so there is one more hurdle to cross.

Portland is gorgeous!!! especially when it stops raining. Traffic truly rivals Atlanta, and I'd even venture to say it's worse. Mountains everywhere and I even saw a snowcapped one from downtown, but not sure which one that is...

And, I went for a walk this morning. I'm staying in a very new part of town and we are literally across the road from farms with chickens, donkeys, etc. I took a few pictures of the view!

Basic stamp used to process audio. Quilt plays music indigenous to the continent you press.
Property J. Kimel

Visitor with quilt at Demo Day, Georgia Tech, 2003.
Property J. Kimel

Sonic Quilt

So, while I'm at it, I wanted to share my other favorite project. Kevin Stamper and I created an awesome (if i do say so myself), quilt which makes noise. A great first endeavor into fabric and electronics for both of us. The columns represent the 7 continents...fabric in the column is as indigenous as I could find here in the US. The switches that turn on the music are made of metallic organza, based on an original idea by Joey Berzowska. The quilt was supposed to go into a Global Learning Center on the Georgia Tech campus. At the moment, it resides on a hanger in my closet :-( .

Gender

So, I find it a constant source of fascination that 90% of the people involved in Smart Clothing, E-textiles, and other on body "wearables" (NOT the black computer boxes people carry around, but real wearables) are female. It's a fascinating niche for those of us who have a creative side and a logical side. But where did the guys go? I can list a bunch of women off the top of my head in the field: Tunde Kirstein, Lucy Dunne, Maggie Orth, Joey Berzowska, Jill Coffin, Katherine Moriwaki, Megan Galbraith....the more I search, the more women turn up! I guess that's cool. It's a great way for intelligent women to blend their skills. But it sure fascinates me that men's names don't pop up nearly as often as the women.

Men, it seems, are doing the on body wearables---those little (and I use the term loosely as they are darn heavy) black boxes which house a computer and use a screen on your glasses. Men are still ok with carrying around a big black box as a computer, looks like the women still want to make the world a functional, but appealing place!

Get Motivated!

Another part of the project, seen above, is the aspect of motivation. Before you can ever detect feedback the user/patient has to be motivated enough to sit down or simply stop life for a few minutes, and exercise. This takes motivation and discipline. I've put together a power point presentation about motivation and the psychology and philosophy surrounding it. I haven't quite figured out if I can post that here, so you can go to this Georgia Tech website and click on "Get Motivated.ppt", to see the presentation...although it always loses something without a translator there to present it!

Day 1.a

So the real reason for blogging is to get my work out there and for myself and others to be able to track progress. As part of my thesis work at Georgia Tech, I am working on a wearable device to help motivate people to do their physical therapy. The first installation of this includes a knee brace type of device that the wearer dons when doing physical therapy(assuming, at this point, that the affected area is the knee). With some neoprene, Hytrel (thanks to the good folks at DuPont) and electroluminescent strips, I was able to wire up a low tech version to prove this concept.