The Week in Review: Victory Edition

Attention: all hands on deck. My professor now has the link to this blog; Quick! Everyone look busy!

Now with that out of the way, we can get down to business. It’s been a pretty great week, starting with our adventures of Tuesday night. I’ve been trading emails for a while with one Julawat “Bub” Suppipat, Midnight Ramblers Class of 2002, who grew up in downtown Bangkok and now runs an awesome Thai/Italian restaurant in the same area. Finally, our schedules coincided at a time when I was capable of eating food again, so we got a chance to get together at last.

Bub swung by KMUTT and picked Joey and I up after work on Tuesday, and we drove over to Sukuhmvit, one of the main streets that runs through the heart of the city. Shopping and dining options abound, many aimed squarely at the large farang population staying in the numerous high end hotels. Bub’s restaurant is known for its outdoor dining, which probably wasn’t the best choice that day, since as we were driving over we found ourselves in one of the heaviest downpours I’ve ever seen. Instead, Bub suggested we get a true taste of nitty-gritty Thai culture, so we went…to “The Londoner” British Pub.

I really do like Thai food. I do. But, after five weeks of rice and noodles, my steak and cheese (cheese!) sandwich was the most delicious food on the planet. To compound the awesome greatness of this sumptuous feast, we arrived right in the middle of happy hour. They say you learn something new everyday. That day, I learned that happy hour is named that way for a reason. Buy one get one is a good enough deal, but with the availability of British style bitter ale happy hour went from happy to ecstatic. While I do like Thai food, I cannont honestly say the same about Thai beer. They have sweet logos, but they taste suspiciously similar to Genny Light (except for Beer Chang, which tastes like Rolling Rock, which tastes like pennies)

After a great night out with Bub, it was back to work. In terms of my research, this week was extremely productive. Pull out your flight suits and unroll the aircraft carrier sized banners; it’s time to declare (likely prematurely) Mission Accomplished! That’s right, I built something that actually works, and does what it was intended to. I’m sure statements like that will make some suspect that the real Nick has been kidnapped and replaced with some sort of strange ghostwriter, but it is actually true. Now the world has a way to repurpose an old printer to serve as a single degree of freedom haptic device. Way cool.

With this done, I can start writing up my report, and also expanding the range of virtual objects that this thing can mimic. Next on the to do list is to imitate a wall made of rubber. I’m sure this is useful…somehow. Anyway, now it’s back to laundry. Following our trip to Chinatown earlier this morning (gripping blog account coming soon), my clothes smell a little interesting.