Author: peterjang73

A nerdy father of two, a husband of a beautiful and understanding wife, an engineer who loves anime and tinkering with PCs and games, but most of all, loves God.
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Heat & Biking: Forced Convection and Heat Transfer

In the morning when I bike to work, it’s normally in mid to upper 70’s.  That’s pretty decent cool weather.  However, when I return, it’s low 90’s to high 80’s even after 6 pm!  😮  But when I do bike home, it doesn’t feel as hot as you’d think!

What the hell is “forced convection”?!  😀  Convection is heat transfer from one medium to the other through the fluid that surrounds the medium.  Basically, you release heat from solids or liquids to surrounding environment.  So in the case of biker, your heat dissipates to the air that surrounds you.  There are two kinds of convections:  free and forced.  Free convection is where the fluid that surrounds the boy in question is not moving, like swimming pool.  Forced convection is where the fluid is now moving, like the river.  What’s this got to do with feeling cooler when biking?!

Well, body temperature is 98 F to begin with.  So when ambient temperature is already in high 80’s to 90’s, there’s going to be not much heat transfer from your body to the air.  Heat transfer is directly related to the difference in temperature after all.  Yet in sitting still, free convection doesn’t help in dissipating your body as it gets hotter.  But once you get moving, air starts to move around you and you now have forced convection.  Forced convection basically, in layman’s terms, strips the heat away from you and thus increases the heat transfer rate despite the low difference in temperature.

So until I get home and stop, my body thinks that it’s rather cool outside still!  Science and engineering can be so nice, huh?!  😀

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Adapting to Life: Incorporating Biking

As I attempt to increase the frequency of riding the bike to work this week, it has introduced a new problem: lunch. Or rather, lack of ability to carry lunch to work. 🙁

I believe that in life, one has to always try hard to adapt to the changes that surrounds the person. After all, nothing stays the same forever, and getting too attached to habits of life can only bring in complacency. Last week, I just bought lunches at work cafeteria. There are two problems with this.

  1. Food taste and selection is terrible! It just plainly sucks.
  2. It is too expensive! Trying to eat healthy, chicken salad cost me $7 last week! 😮

I usually pack turkey sandwiches but the plastic container it resides in is too big! That definitely did not fit in my medium sized messenger bag that I take with me to work. It already contains my change of clothes on top of other sundry things.

To really make this healthy, green, and cost-saving habit to take full life, I had to make this lunch happen! Then this morning, it occurred to me. I could just pack individual sandwiches in its own smaller containers! It’s thinner (half the thickness) and would allow to be compact! Engineering at its finest! 😀 So I don’t have to spend too much money to buy lunch at work now! Yeah!

Even in engineering, you have to constantly adapt to different challenges, as new problems always ensue. Here’s to successful biking to work three times this week! Depending on how well this week goes, I may just bike to work all 5 days next week! Here’s to your health.

And for the last part, I wanted to thank all those that cared about my health and thus kept pestering me over and over and over… and over! 😛 That means thanks goes to Soojin, my dearest wife, my mom, and my mother-in-law!! Ha ha ha… Thanks everyone.

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Two Weddings in August: Won Lee and Kathy Kang

Two people that have been friends of mine since… 1995!  😮

Both are finally getting married!!  And no, not to each other!!  Won Suk Lee is getting married on August 16 in California!  Kathy Kang is getting married in San Antonio on August 23!  Here’s Kathy and her fiancé together…

I don’t know if I can make it to either of the weddings with Soojin’s condition and uncertainty but I am very happy for both of them!!  😀  My prayers are with you all…  And huge big congratulations!!

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Changing the Driving Habits: Reaction to Gas Prices

Now, gas prices near my area has gone up to $3.70/gallon! 🙁 So in order to conserve fuel as much as possible, I have adapted myself to change the driving habits.

  1. When coming up to red light ahead, I take my foot off the gas pedal and cruise as much as I can.
  2. Use cruise control in highway if weather and traffic permits.  (Using cruise control in rain is not safe!)
  3. Accelerate as mildly as possible.  When you gun it, you force the engine to not fully combust the fuel.
  4. Avoid driving in the heat/daytime if possible.  Driving in heat will make your engine and other things run less efficiently.
  5. Drive slowly.  Or to clarify, avoid driving fast.

The last point is what has been the most difficult.  Yesterday, on my way back from the Montrose Street Outreach, I decided to keep cruise control at 60 mph.  That’s even slow in my book!  😮  But I thought to myself, it’s not like I have people waiting for me at home or need to be in a hurry.  That put the engine speed at 2200 rpms.  Usually, cruising at 65 mph would keep that at higher revs of 2500 rpms.  Just remember, lower rpms the less gas it uses.

I seriously don’t know how much this will save on gas… but as I also bike to work more and more, hopefully, all things will help ’cause it sure don’t seem like gas prices will be coming down anytime soon!  Or at all!

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Skype’s Unlimited World Plan Review

Skype has been around for quite some time now… it has established itself as VoIP (Voice over IP) initiator.  This means that it will allow you to make calls over the Internet.  Now, it has taken another major step towards bigger market.  It is now offering what it calls “Unlimited World Plan“.  What is this?  For just $10 a month (ok, $9.95 to be precise but it’s $10!), you can make unlimited calls to anywhere in the 34 countries!  And it also happens to include South Korea!  😀

So I signed up to test this humongous potential!  I used my Logitech Webcam as microphone.  I call Soojin up as she’s in Korea.  I hear her just fine.  However, she says she can only hear my first syllable… like a bad cell phone call.  🙁  I get frustrated so I hang up.  I call her back with the cheap calling card I have been using from www.fonsale.com

Brian had warned me about this poor quality… so I was about to give up on it… but after few days of thinking, I decided to search SKype’s site for “poor quality”.  What comes up first?  Echo.  That’s right.  First thing it says is that echo can degrade audio quality and that webcams are infamous for it.  So I decided to unplug the USB webcam and plugged into mic port a microphone that I own.  I dial Korea again, and this time, she hears me perfectly!!  😮

Conclusion to this review?  What about this line?  “We have a winner!!”  😛  Seriously folks, if you call one of those 34 countries frequently (and that includes within US, Canada, and Mexico), this is one heck of a deal!!  Just be sure to not use USB webcams!!  🙂

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Biking to Work

So to include exercise and healthy habits into my life, I have decided to bike to work. This also helps in conserving little bit of gasoline as the prices are soaring still these days. When using Google Maps, it estimated my route to be about 5 miles each way.

Well, this wouldn’t be possible without a bike. Much thanks goes to Chung for lending me his awesome bike (rebuilt in the good ol’ Chung fashion) with new tires, brakes and chain! 😀 Both wheels can be removed. So after some purchases at local Academy store, I was set. I intentionally left bit earlier than normal to avoid my biggest nemesis: heat. I left at 7:30 am and it took me about 40 minutes to get to work. While that may sound slow, I do have a bag with me with a change of clothes.

Also thanks goes to Daniel for his tip on getting gloves ’cause otherwise, it would’ve been both my butt AND palms that hurt. My buttocks are still sore but I hope that they will be fine after a week or so. I will be leaving in about 15 minutes (5:30 pm local CST) to avoid heat. I’m starting at twice a week. In less than a month, I hope to increase it to 3 times a week.

The downside is that I can’t fit lunch into my messenger bag. I do have lunch bag but not sure if it would survive the bumpy ups and downs for 5 miles. Any tips from pros?! 😛 Anyhow, this was only possible since my work place has shower facility! Yeah, Boeing! 😀 Here’s to safe ride back! Please, if you see bikers on the road (not motorcycles!), be kind and don’t honk and give us some freakin’ space!!

EDIT: Ok… I just got back… and I have to say… Houston is NOT biker-friendly!!  I know Houston drivers in general are rough, let alone towards bikers.  So at any given major intersections, I get off my bike and cross as a walker.  HOWEVER, after pressing the button to walk across, I waited for not one, not two, but THREE cycles of traffic lights and the sucker wouldn’t change for a human to cross!!  Listen, Texas DoT or whoever owns these lights… FIX your d*** traffic lights!!  Where’s my freakin’ tax dollar going to, anyway?!! 😡

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Missing the Family…

Last time Soojin was in Korea, it was 5 years ago and Anna was just a year old.  However, I didn’t have that hard of a time… this time around, I was trying to distract myself by watching loads of movies and such… but it’s harder this time around…

Soojin is sick in Korea, and the kids are there too.  I called the kids one day… and found out that JJ was crying for daddy when his aunt was putting him to sleep.  That was such a major tear jerker!  🙁  With finding out how much of an awesome person Soojin is for reaching out for Christ even while being hospitalized, and I miss them so much.

At least I got to spend some quality time with Anna and JJ… they had such a blast walking around the city of Chonju… and eating loads of Korean cookies and popsicles.  🙂