Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Truck Stats

Last year, Tyla got me an OBDII data logger (Automatic) for my birthday and, of course, I ended up writing an app to download my trip data so I could analyze it. I still get those analysis reports twice per day and they continue to be interesting. For example, I don’t know why, but the last two weeks have had some of the worst traffic on my way home from work in the last year. Now that I have over a year of data, there’s enough to calculate some semi-interesting stats on my drives in our 2016 F150 3.5L Ecoboost:

    • The average trip to work takes me 26.3 minutes.
    • The average trip home takes me 33.9 minutes.
    • It feels like if I leave work a couple minutes early, I’ll avoid the worst of the traffic. Here’s my average commute time based on when I leave. (The x-axis is in 24 hour time so 17 is 5pm.) The y-axis is my average commute home in minutes. It does look like if I leave about 10 minutes before 5 my commute is generally 5-10 minutes faster.
    • My most fuel efficient trip was a 43.7mpg drive along the 3.5 mile route from my house to Home Depot. Not bad for a 5000 pound truck! (A lot of it is downhill and I like to see how little gas I can use on that route…)
      • Best fuel mileage for a trip over 10 miles: Church to Totem Lake AutoZone 28.0mpg
      • Best fuel mileage for a trip over 50 miles: Crystal Mountain to our house 24.7mpg
    • My worst gas mileage is going from Work to the butcher. It’s a short trip and when it’s really cold, my truck spends the whole time idling at stop lights and trying to warm up. I’ve gotten 3.5mpg on that route a couple times!
    • Of the days that I drive the truck, I spend an average of 69.3 minute driving.
    • The most driving in one day was 366 minutes. That was May 25, 2018 when we drove down to Ocean Park for Memorial Day.

I love having all this data! I could do this all night but I should probably cut it off here and go to bed. By the way, all of these charts and stats were created with public preview of Azure Data Explorer. We’ve been using that product internally for a couple years and it makes stuff like the stats above ridiculously fast and easy. If you’re at all involved in data engineering or data analysis, you need to get familiar with Azure Data Explorer!

benmartens October 12, 2018 Gadgets, Geek

Fantasy Football – Week 5

The odds were heavily against the Seahawks but they almost pulled out a win. Their offense was able to cover their defensive failures and they even had a final drive to put themselves in position for a game winning field goal… and then they took themselves out of position with penalties. I’m sticking with my 7-9 prediction.

Our leave is finally spreading out a bit. Tyler continued his winning streak and is sitting pretty at 4-1. Logan, Andy and Tim are tied for second and the rest of us are chasing them. Make sure that you’re checking those free agent boards. There are still some great players out there that are free agents. This league is generally won by the person who makes the best use of those free agents. Tyler is in first place in our power rankings and it’s hard to argue with that.

1. Tyler (Krazy Kanuck) +2
2. Logan (Goat Roapers) -1
3. Ben (Kool Aid Kid) -1
4. Andy (RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!)

Now on to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All Time
Highest Team Score Logan had 144.53 Tyler had 183.70 (Week 2) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Nick had 102.01 Nick had 93.70 (Week 1) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Tyler beat Nick by 41.45 Ben beat Luke by 50.20 (Week 4) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Tim beat Luke by 2.58 Nick beat Andy by 1.89 (Week 3) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Aaron Rodgers had 34.68 for Luke Mitchell Trubisky had 55.46 as a free agent (Week 4) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Tyler has a 4 game winning streak Was: Tyler has a 3 game winning streak (Week 4) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Luke has a 4 game losing streak Was: Luke has a 3 game losing streak (Week 4) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens October 10, 2018 Fantasy Sports

Family Photos

Tyla’s birthday present this year was another round of family photos. She ended up choosing the same lady who did our photos last time, Kelly from Two Swallows Studio. Tyla found a great park that is close by but none of us had ever been two called McAuliffe Park. The park turned out to be a photography dream. It’s like someone intentionally made a park for a photography class and we showed up on day with pretty great weather for photos.

As before, Kelly did a great job and we are really happy with the results! Here are a few of our favorites:

benmartens October 8, 2018 Family

Ticket Stubs

I don’t remember what prompted this, but I thought it would be fun to try and list off all the concerts that I’ve been to. I wouldn’t count myself as a frequent concert-goer, but this list is surprisingly long. Many of you have been to concerts and shows with me. Which ones did I miss? Where possible I’ve linked to blog posts about the events.

Pre-College:

  • AVB, Acapella and Point of Grace
  • Downhere

College:

  • Mark Lowry
  • Annie and Kelly McRae
  • Third Day
  • Purdue Christmas Special

2002-2006 (New Jersey):

2006-2013 (Washington, before Elijah):

2013 (Washington, after Elijah):

  • Caspar Babypants (twice!)

So I guess the natural question is: what are my favorites? Honestly, I really liked almost all of them. I’ll flip it around and choose the ones I wouldn’t do again. The Kenny Chesney concert was too loud, too many people, and too long. Matt Nathanson was … meh. I love his music but I didn’t love the concert. Maybe it was the venue. The Zane Lamprey and American Chopper shows were about as dumb as you’d expect them to be, but still entertaining enough. Jack Johnson was a fun experience but I’m too lame to do concerts at the Gorge, especially if I’m camping there afterwards.

There are lots of good memories in that list! I had forgotten about a lot of them until I really thought about it and tried to write them all down.

benmartens October 5, 2018 Music

Fantasy Football – Week 4

The Seahawks made rookie QB Rosen look good, but they pulled out a win. That stadium continues to haunt them though. Remember last year when Sherman and Chancellor got hurt there and ended their Seahawks careers? Add Earl Thomas to that list. He left with a broken leg and though it’s something that will heal by the time the playoffs roll around, he didn’t appear to want to return in a Seahawks uniform. I have a hard time siding with a guy who is getting paid $10 million to play football. See ya Earl.

Our league’s goofy season continues. We now have a 6 way tie for second place and Luke down in 8th place is only 2 games out of first place. Tyler is alone out front at 3-1 and he’s looking strong. Nick will be the next one to try and knock him back down into the mass of teams nipping at his heels.

When you look at the records below, look at the highest scoring player. This is the fourth consecutive week where the highest scoring player has a been a free agent!

Even though the league is close in terms of records, with four games behind us, my incredibly accurate and totally future-predicting power ranking algorithm is ready to rock. Here’s what it says now:

1. Logan (Goat Roapers)
2. Ben (Kool Aid Kid)
3. Tyler (Krazy Kanuck)
4. Andy (RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!)

Now on to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All Time
Highest Team Score Ben had 152.63 Tyler had 183.70 (Week 2) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Luke had 102.43 Nick had 93.70 (Week 1) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Ben beat Luke by 50.20 Was: Luke beat Nick by 35.63 (Week 1) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Dad beat Nick by 18.24 Nick beat Andy by 1.89 (Week 3) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Mitchell Trubisky had 55.46 as a free agent Was: Patrick Mahomes had 50.84 as a free agent (Week 2) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Tyler has a 3 game winning streak Was: Tyler, Nick and Andy had a 2 game winning streaks Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Luke has a 3 game losing streak Was: Luke, Dad and Logan has a 2 game losing streaks Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens October 3, 2018 Fantasy Sports

8-Bit Ben

The site Fiverr.com (pronouned “five-er”) has been around for quite a while, but I just recently used it for the first time. The idea is that you can pay someone $5 (or something very cheap) to do a small digital task for you. You can peruse it yourself to see all the various offerings, but I wanted a pixel art picture of myself.

I’m quite happy with the 8-bit avatar that was drawn for me by user arveyyudi. He even allowed for a minor change to my hair color after he sent me the first copy. I’ve set this as my avatar on a few sites and even in our Outlook directory at work.

benmartens October 1, 2018 Geek

Lego Old Fishing Store

My birthday was a couple weeks ago and I received a lot of nice gifts. Thank you! However, I had a little extra smile when I opened the joint gift from Tyla and Elijah because I couldn’t remember the last time that I received something that was nothing other than a toy. They got me the giant Old Fishing Store Lego set!

After putting together the Lego Diner earlier this summer, I put that fishing set on my wish list. These big sets are so much fun and it’s great to spend time with Elijah working on it. The fishing village came out a while back but it’s always stuck in my mind for the insane level of detail. After assembling it, I can say that it lived up to my expectations! And as with the diner set, I’m not going to post my own photos because plenty are available online. I also recommend that you watch the JANGBRiCKS video review.

It’s hard to say whether I like this set more or less than the diner. On the plus side, this has more detail crammed into a smaller space. On the downside, a bunch of that detail comes from specialized pieces. Both the diner and this fishing store have lots of studs-on-the-side construction to support siding on the walls but the fishing store has an interesting take on it. The whole structure is built to look old so some of the siding pieces are put on at an angle. It’s a neat effect.

When I built the diner I thought it would be a one-and-done thing. But now I have two. Hmm…

benmartens September 28, 2018 Commentary

Fantasy Football – Week 3

The Seahawks looked reasonably good on Sunday. It was a nice change of pace. Wilson didn’t spend the whole game getting sacked and the defense was able to keep the Cowboys under wraps. My prediction for this year is that the Seahawks will finish 7-9.

In our league, I posted the second highest score and lost to Logan. I guess it’s only fair since that happened to him last week. Half the league is now tied for 1st with a 2-1 record and everyone else is tied for 5th with a 1-2 record. It’s obviously anybody’s season at this point. Our two newest league members, Tyler and Nick, started with a loss but they now have 2 game winning streaks and Tyler is at the top of the league!

Now on to the weekly awards…

This Week This Season All Time
Highest Team Score Logan had 145.83 Tyler had 183.70 (Week 2) Tim 200.51 (2015)
Lowest Team Score Dad had 94.54 Nick had 93.70 (Week 1) Andy had 41.29 (2015)
Biggest Blowout Tyler beat Luke by 13.34 Luke beat Nick by 35.63 (Week 1) Luke beat Andy by 113.02 (2010)
Closest Win Nick beat Andy by 1.89 Was: Andy beat Luke by 4.31 (Week 2) Jim beat Ben by 0.12 (2012)
Highest Scoring Player Matt Ryan had 50.16 as a free agent. Patrick Mahomes had 50.84 as a free agent (Week 2) Drew Brees had 60.54 on Tim’s bench (2015)
Longest Active Winning Streak Tyler and Nick have 2 game winning streaks. Was: Andy had a 2 game winning streak (Week 2) Micah (2011) and Ben (2015) had an 8 game winning streak
Longest Active Losing Streak Luke and Dad have 2 game losing streaks. Was: Logan has a 2 game losing streak (Week 2) Kyle had a 14 game losing streak (2011)
benmartens September 26, 2018 Fantasy Sports

Standing Desk Monitor

We have nice standing desks at work. They have electric motors with memory settings so it’s quick and easy to switch between standing up or sitting down. I believe that it’s significantly healthier to stand up at least part of the day, but I find myself being lazy and sitting for most of the day. I also know that it’s relatively easy to motivate myself by measuring whatever I’m trying to improve. Time for a project!

To measure whether I’m standing or sitting, I decided to use a distance sensor that either sits on top of the desk and looks at the floor, or sits on the floor and looks up. I’m sure there are cheaper ways to do this, but I ordered a SparkFun BlackBoard, Distance Sensor Breakout, and a Qwiic cable to connect them. There was no soldering required. I plugged it all in and I was good to go. I laser cut a wood box to hold all the components.

I wrote a simple program for the Arduino-compatible BlackBoard that would send a measurement when it received a keystroke and then I wrote a program that runs on the computer to periodically request measurements (via USB) and upload them to a database in the cloud. I put a website on top of the page and voila!

A friend at work heard about the idea and wanted to compete with me so now we are both running these devices. You can track our progress at http://standupweb.azurewebsites.net/

benmartens September 24, 2018 Gadgets, Geek, Maker

Woodworking Project Recap

When we visited Grandma Martens this summer, she showed us a photo album of a bunch of Grandpa’s woodworking projects. I thought that was a pretty neat idea, and while I’ve blogged about most of them, I thought I’d walk around the house and make a video of my projects. I realize it’s dorky, but what did you expect from me?

benmartens September 21, 2018 Woodworking