October 2005

Today was kind of a big day for me, so I thought I’d mark it in my blog. Mostly for personal reasons, so I can look back on it later.

Today I got my first paycheck from Amazon.com. And I paid off my credit card debt… in full. It feels good.

So I held off on blogging for a week or two. Partially because I was busy/lazy, and partially because I was waiting to hear back from HR about Amazon.com’s blogging policy.

But I finally heard back from them. I think they created a blogging policy simply because I asked. As such I’ve added a disclaimer to the sidebar of my blog reminding you that although I work for Amazon.com, I don’t speak for them. And don’t expect me to give away any deep dark Amazon secrets… that would certainly get me fired.

What I can tell you is that my group builds the tools that medium-sized third-party merchants use to sell products on Amazon. So when you buy an item thats sold by that mom & pop shop in Wisconsin, you’re dealing at least a little bit with my group’s code. Amazon is an awesome place to work and I’m very excited about the directions in which we are going.

Other than that… I love Seattle. Its an awesome town. I found a great apartment on Alki beach with an old housemate from college and I’m settling in nicely. Now I just need to find a boat to race on…

DARPA Grand Challenge

It all comes down to today.

Its 3:51AM. The handoff off the official route CD happens in about 10 minutes. At sunrise, in about 2 hours, we start.

Watch www.redteamracing.org for real-time updates from Evan (and probably some photos from yours-truly). DARPA also has a webcast (of questionable quality) up at www.redteamracing.org.

The Robot-Human War Has Begun

Today I was the first casualty of the coming robot-human war. While watching one of the final rounds of the DARPA Grand Challenge, I was taking photos leaning on one of the concrete barriers that surrounded the track. After leaving the tunnel section of the course, “Tommy”, Team Jefferson’s entry, rapidly accelerated to about 40 miles per hour and struck the barrier exactly where I was standing. I had just enough time to run a few steps and dive into the dirt as it hit the barrier and knocked it about four feet towards where I was standing. Fortunately I escaped with a few cuts and scrapes from my dive, but Tommy was totaled.

Update: Talking to Team Jefferson later that day I found out that the last reading from their telemetry data had them going in excess of 50 miles per hour. However, they worked non-stop all night and had their vehicle ready for one more attempt the next day.

Sandstorm at NQE

I’m in Ontario, California right now with Carnegie Mellon’s “Red Team”. Currently we’re at the National Qualifying Event but later this week we’ll move up to Primm, Nevada for the actual race.

You can follow along at www.redteamracing.org or www.grandchallenge.org.