CoffeeSig

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Author: ken Page 6 of 7

House selling requires patience

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On June 2, 2026

In Texas house

We got the report back from our house showing last Friday and from two people who came to the open house on Sunday afternoon. The people on Friday loved the house, but the living room was smaller than they expected. The two on Sunday were both work-from-home couples and were worried about the fact that all we have is StarLink for broadband internet. We were relieved that the issues were fundamentally different from the first four or five visitors who all thought the house is to close to a main road (it is not). It was a nice reminder that there are a lot of things that influence buyers over which we have no control, but that it only takes one to pull the trigger. That one is harder to find when the market conditions are not optimal with high interest rates right now. In the end, it really just takes patience. We have been very fortunate in the houses we have sold over the years, only Albany, Oregon took us longer than a couple of months and that eventually sold when we were not expecting it. So, we have decided we just need to be patient. It is all in God’s hands. We cannot start the Texas house until this house sells and that is OK. We actually love living here.

First deer of the year

By

On June 1, 2026

In Uncategorized

Lorena took this picture from the screen porch this morning. We saw this last year and are glad to have them back.

Selling the house

By

On May 31, 2026

In GaugeCam, Texas house

We are in the process of selling our house in Virginia so we can build a house on a lot we own in Texas. The design for the new house is complete along with the engineering drawings and approval from the Historic Preservation Commission of the town where we want to build. We are dying to get the house sold, but the market is not optimal right now, so we are enjoying this spectacular part of Virginia while we wait. We had a showing yesterday and a three hour open house today. That means Lorena and I have to be out of the house for an extended period time. Lorena goes out shopping and I hang out programming GaugeCam for long periods of time. I am amazed how much I am getting done and expect to be submitting two papers for publication before the end of the year. Maybe three, God willing.

GRIME3 — First prerelease

By

On May 30, 2026

In GaugeCam

The first prerelease version of GRIME3, the Python port of GRIME2, is up and available for download on GitHub. It has almost all the functionality of the CLI version of GRIME2, but with improved waterline and octagon finding. There has already been one small feature release. I expect there will be one or two more of those before I move on to start integrating the second major prerelease version that features a GRIME AI segmentation model to help us deal with the pernicious biofouling that plagues camera based water level measurement. Testing of the first prerelease version is planned for next week in Troy Gilmore’s lab at University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

GaugeCam remote office (Panera)

By

On May 29, 2026

In GaugeCam

I am extremely grateful for the Panera by our house. When Lorena goes shopping at Costco, Trader Joe’s, Wegman’s, Home Goods or the plethora of other stores around here, she drops me off at Panera. I drink coffee and work on GRIME3. The have a good internet connection, I love the coffee, and my favorite table is almost always available. I think it helps we are there mostly during slow hours, because I do not think it would be so good during the rush. I think about 80% of the work I have done so far on the project has been here at Panera and that percentage is rising.

Diet corn tortillas!!!

By

On May 29, 2026

In Food

These 25 calorie corn tortillas are what make our new healthy diet plan actually work. They are amazingly good and perfect for our high protein, nutritious diet. We had to order them from Walmart online and wait a couple of weeks for them to arrive. It was worth the wait.

GRIME3 water level measurement

By

On May 29, 2026

In GaugeCam

My main engagement with the GaugeCam GRIME Lab these days is a port of the GRIME2 camera based water level measurement software. It was initially written in C++ as a prototype research project starting back in 2009. It morphed into production software, but has always suffered from its beginnings. It was developed on Linux using that ecosystem, but delivered only as a Windows desktop installer. It really did a great job for what it was initially intended to be, but was only adequate as a production software release.

We have wanted to make improvements to the software to handle things like biofouling at the waterline and the ability to find a much smaller target, so that was planned to be my next project. When I got my fingers back into the code to do that, I decided I was going to make this a longer term project with production code as opposed to just making the minimal fixes to make it all work just well enough to gather data and publish a couple of papers. Troy Gilmore and I have frequently discussed some of the things that would make the product better, so I decided to try to morph GRIME2 into GRIME3 with the following aims in mind:

  • Port to Python (that is where the user base is going)
  • Cross-platform compatible
    • Desktop (Linux, Windows, Apple)
    • Linux embedded (Raspberry Pi)
    • Cloud server
  • Browser based GUI
  • Extensive CLI support
  • Measurement improvements
    • Smaller calibration targets (hoping for something that fits on a standard staff gauge)
    • AI model to extract waterline in the face of biofouling

This work and corresponding publications are well under way. It is also important to note that GRIME4 is on the road map and aimed at a stretch goal and production level functionality that could have a significant impact on this niche research area.

Lorena’s work station

By

On May 28, 2026

In Uncategorized

Lorena got her desk put together and we set up the little Intel NUC for her on it. She is quite pleased.

CoffeeSig blog setup

By

On May 28, 2026

In Blog

I was sick of the hassle of dealing with a hosting service for my previous blog because they rarely kept anything current and I paid a lot more than it seemed like it was worth. This time, I decided to do it on my own server at the house. I got a Virtual Private Server (VPS) account for a few dollars per month and set up everything on an Intel NUC (computer) in the house. You can see the setup in this image. Lorena went out and bought a little desk where we can set it up to look nice after she installs a basket and some holes in the right places to make it look nicer. She will use the computer for browsing and AI queries. It was fun and surprisingly easy to set up relative to what I have experienced in the past for these sorts of things.

Health plan

By

On May 27, 2026

In Health

I did a pretty bad job of tracking my health in my previous blog, but even the little I did was a big help to me. My brother, Doug, and I have been teaming up and using AI to develop customized health and diet plans and keep each other accountable now that we are septuagenarians. Doug has been doing it longer than me, but he got me onto a diet plan that I amazed actually works. I started all this on January 2, 2026–the chart shown here is my weight progress since I began. I have an intermediate goal of 199 lbs. on the way to a final goal of 170 lbs. with that final goal being a little more mushy because the AI and I are not sure what weight is really appropriate for me given my history and body type. This post is a stake in the ground for myself to report back here on a regular basis, first on my weight and BMI, then on other goals–not sure what they might be yet.

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