Category: Memoirs of James Pate Williams Jr

A Northrup P-61 Black Widow drop tank can hold 310 US gallons of high-octane gasoline. The P-61 can carry two to four drop tanks. 310 US gallons weighs 310 gallons * 6.1 pounds = 1,891 pounds. So, the contents of four drop tanks weigh 1,891 pounds * 4 = 7,564 pounds. Neglecting the weight of the drop tank itself, a single P-61 could dump over 3 tons (one US ton = 2,000 pounds) in drop tanks onto friendly or enemy territory. I wonder just how many people were killed by objects ejected prematurely from bombers and fighters in World War II.

03-04-2009 Math Grades at Georgia Tech (1980 – 1983)

The applied numerical analysis that I have been doing lately reminds of my not-so-great experience at Georgia Tech in 1980 to 1983. In that long bygone era, I was an untreated schizophrenic later diagnosed as bipolar undergoing some pretty difficult times. I was having some strangely seriously disabling delusions about the CIA and other branches of the federal government. As I have probably stated in other slide presentations on this site, perhaps even too many times, I knew I was delusional, but I could not stop dwelling on these fictitious thoughts. Anyway, I miraculously was able to take and complete a few senior level engineering or math major math courses and three graduate level math courses. Here are the courses and my grades:

MATH 4582 – Advanced Engineering Mathematics – B, 3 Quarter Hours

MATH 4347 – Partial Differential Equations – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4583 – Vector Analysis – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4320 – Complex Analysis – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4338 – Partial Differential Equations – A, 3 Hours

MATH 6581 – Calculus of Variations – A, 3 Hours

MATH 4640 – Scientific Computing I – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4311 – Introduction to Analysis I – C, 4 Hours

MATH 6341 – Partial Differential Equations I – B, 3 Hours

MATH 4312 – Introduction to Analysis II – B, 4 Hours

MATH 6342 – Partial Differential Equations – D, 3 Hours

I have perhaps legitimate excuses for the C and D. I failed to show up for one of my analysis tests and I received a 0. In the PDE course in which I made a D, I failed to do a term computer project, because I temporarily lost access to LaGrange College’s DG Eclipse minicomputer, and I was scared to death of the CDC Cyber mainframe on the GT campus. I had a CDC FORTRAN manual, but I had no training with the CDC Compass OS. Also, I don’t remember if the DG Eclipse in the chemistry x-ray crystallography lab had either a BASIC interpreter or Fortran or Pascal compilers.

A-grades at GT in those days were very hard to get. I can’t remember whether my introduction to Bessel functions and Legendre polynomials was in MATH 4582 or MATH 4338. I had not taken a formal ordinary differential equations course at LaGrange College, but I was an autodidact (self-taught person) in that area of advanced enginneering mathematics.

I think I could take an applied numerical analysis or partial differential equation course at any institution of higher learning today and do fairly well.

03-04-2009 CHEM 6151 1982 Georgia Tech

I took CHEM 6151 X-Ray Crystallography in the winter of 1982 under the Head of the Chemistry Department. The professor was a top-notched x-ray crystallographer and researcher. Anyway, I wound up with a B in the course since I did not do the optional actual x-ray crystallography analysis of a previously unknown crystal structure. A true chemical, physical, and mathematical genius who had 4.0 averages at Tech both as an undergraduate and graduate student did very well on his crystal and, of course, made an A in the course. This guy was studying nuclear chemistry, and he could easily unravel and decipher any type of spectral data whether it was done by alpha, beta, or gamma spectroscopy, IR, mass, NMR, UV, or visible spectroscopy. I could with great difficulty analyze some spectral data, but I was not even marginally as proficient as the genius.

Again, I think I was afraid of the x-ray crystallography equipment since I thought the government could use spurious x-rays to read my thoughts. I could have used an aluminum hat to deflect the x-rays, but I was even too paranoid for that insane gesture.

03-06-2009 Bailout Insanity

I voted for President Obama, and I really don’t think I had any other viable option with the exception of a vote for the unelectable Ralph Nader. I do wonder about the sanity of the financial sector bailout initiated by former President Bush (good riddance) to the tune of $350 billion out of $700 billion available and also the most recent economic stimulus package signed by President Obama. All these “bailouts or stimuli” are very reminiscent of the desperate measures taken by FDR during the onset of the great depression. Don’t get me wrong, I like FDR a lot, but the massive public works programs he started were nothing more than a somewhat ineffective economic band-aid. It took the Imperialistic Japanese and the mentally ill Nazis with WWII to really recover to a certain extent our economy. Then there was the great economic bust immediately following WWII when the factories geared down production from the peak WWII levels, released all the highly skilled female employees, and the large number of armed services personnel returned to no jobs. Only the GI bill, Marshall Plan, and other ingenious economic downturn countermeasures saved us for the baby booming times of the late 1940s and early 1950s. You can’t just wantonly throw federal money at a set of serious economic problems without some very long term strategic as well as tactical planning. Just creating a lot of construction jobs is a 1930s approach and inherently destabilizing today. As the old actor (“Water World” villain whose name evades me) states in a television commercial about retirement: “You have to have a plan”. Well, I don’t think either the former President, current President, or Congress really has long range plan and what we are looking at now is a lot of panic, put your finger in the dike thinking.

P. S. Fortunately, for me, President Bush enacted the second tier of unemployment benefits that I am collecting for about the next 10 or so weeks.

P. S. S. I thought the pundits said that the bottom of the stock market was at the INDU level of 7,000 now it is about 6,500. AFLAC stock has lost almost 5/6’s of its peak value about last March. Google has lost over half its stock value. We have similar situations with Amazon and Apple stocks. The technology stocks are still better off than the financial related stocks with Bank of America stock worth less than a $1.00 a share. In LaGrange, Georgia, U. S., the January unemployment rate was over 14%, a hefty increase from 6.7% a year ago. My county, Troup County’s unemployment rate was 12.2% up from 10.3% in December 2008 and 6.7% in December 2007. These are the scariest economic times that I can remember. I am ready to be a greeter at WAL-MART, if and only if, I can get the job.

I have had three formal courses in elementary numerical analysis: one at Georgia Tech and two at LaGrange College. All three of these courses were targeting the undergraduate/graduate students at the institutions. The course at Georgia Tech was Scientific Computing I and was taught by Professor Gunter Meyer in the Summer Quarter of 1982. The other two courses were taught by Professor Fay A. Riddle. One of the LC courses was in Fall Quarter 1986 and the other was taught in Fall Quarter 1991. I had a mental break from reality in 1986 and I wound up in the Bradley Center in Columbus, GA for a few months’ hospitalization. I made the grades: B, C, and A respectively. I have done a lot of numerically based computer programming primarily in the Dayton BASIC, FORTRAN IV, and DG Pascal in the era: 1978 to 1980. I entered Georgia Tech in Fall 1980, so I was just able to work on the LC Data General Eclipse minicomputer on some weekends. I was deathly afraid of the Control Data Corporations Cyber supercomputer on the campus of Georgia Tech. The chairperson of the Chemistry Department, Professor Bertrand at Georgia Tech unsuccessfully tried to convince to use the Data General Eclipse minicomputer in the x-ray crystallography lab in the Boggs Chemistry Department building.

In the late 1980s I advanced to doing numerical computing on my first microcomputer, a Commodore Amiga 2000, which came into my life on Saturday, April 30, 1988. I used this machine until late 1994 when I acquired a mom-and-pop store Microsoft Intel personal computer. The Commodore Amiga languages I used were Microsoft Amiga BASIC, Modula-2, and Pecan Pascal. The languages on my first PC were Borland C++ and Borland Turbo Pascal.

I seem to recall that I transitioned to a Dell personal computer in 1998 and was using Visual Studio 6 in the C++ language. I used this computer along with another Dell personal computer which was purchased in 2002. I started programming in Java in the summer of 1999 when I took a course in object-oriented computer languages featuring the Sun Microcomputers version of Java. The Java course was taught by Professor Homer Carlisle who later became a doctoral faculty advisor of mine.

There was a lull in my numerical analytic software development during the late 1990s until the mid- 2000s. That period was the time required for me to earn a Master of Software Engineering and Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science in Summer 2000 (August) and Fall 2005 (December) at Auburn University, respectively. I bought an Apple Power Mac with dual G5 IBM 64-bit microprocessors in December 2004. Unfortunately, it did not survive until about 2008 to 2009. In 2009, I bought a Dell computer running a CoreI7 processor and Vista Ultimate operating system along the software: Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Cakewalk SONAR 8 Producer Edition.

I started doing a lot of software development covering a wide range of the spectra of computer algorithms in February 2015. These projects in Visual Studio 2008 and later Visual Studio 2015 were uploaded to the defunct Microsoft TechNet Forum and Gallery. I think I had around 250 projects in Vanilla C, Win32 C, Win32 C++, and C#. I bought my last Dell personal computer in December 2015. I do have a fair recently purchased Dell notebook computer.

Currently, I am teaching myself Python and I hope later to expand my knowledge of JavaScript.

My Pathways counselor seems to believe I would be a good person to enter the Positive Options rehabilitation program at the Troup County Mental Health Clinic. The reason I am not attending the adult daycare and supportive living training  program Pathways, Positive Options, is that I do not see that I would derive any benefit from the program. The program seems to be geared towards the recently or current homeless population with mental aberrations. When I unilaterally stop taking my anti-psychotic medication, I might be a good candidate for the Pathways program. I am pretty much asymptomatic when I take my medication on my own schedule or more likely as prescribed.

I have been under the care of the Troup County Pathways Mental Health Clinic since around 1988 or 1989. I have been under psychiatric care since late 1972 or early 1973. I have sojourned in a good number of hospitals both private and state of Georgia operated:

1. Peachtree-Parkwood Hospital in Atlanta, private a few months of care in the period 1973 to 1975 1999 Cliff Valley Way
2. Central State Regional Hospital in Milledgeville, state, a couple of weeks in 1975
3. West Central Georgia Regional Hospital in Columbus, state, about a month in 1975
4. Renewal House in Atlanta, state, drug rehab, a few months in 1975 until sometime in early 1976
5. Bradley Center Hospital in Columbus, private, a few months in late 1986 until early in 1987
6. Troup County Pathways Mental Health Clinic beginning in probably 1988 or early 1989
7. New Ventures, state, vocational rehabilitation late 1988 until almost Fall Quarter 1990
8. Pathways Second Season in LaGrange, two weeks in March 2010
9. Northwest Regional Hospital in Rome, state, a couple of months in the spring of 2010
10. Northwest Regional Hospital in Rome, state, two or three weeks in June – July 2010
11. Troup County Jail from May 8, 2019 until June 12, 2019 and from October 17, 2019 until November 26, 2019
12. I was shuttled from Troup Count Jail to Pathways Second Season on June 12, 2019. I stayed at that locale from June 12, 2019 until October 17, 2019, a record setting 127 days

Now for my academic records:

I barely graduated from LaGrange High School. I was caught with a marijuana cigarette (joint) in my pocket by the assistant principal Mr. Sturdivant, one day in late Winter 1971. I had to perform a mea culpa before the Board of Education to return to school in time to graduate. I think that my dad and the Chairman of the Board, Charles Hudson, were influential in my graduation. I was a teenage abuser of alcohol and drugs.

I entered LaGrange College in Fall Quarter 1971 and I performed increasingly abysmal in my studies. At the end of Spring Quarter my GPA was a terrible 0.75 out of 4.00. I did not return to the college until Fall Quarter 1976. My drug abuse helped make me a poor student.

I graduated from LaGrange College on June 2, 1979. I earned A Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry with a low 3.00+ GPA. I applied and was accepted to be a teaching assistant in Chemistry at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Fall Quarter 1980. I left Georgia Tech after the Summer Quarter of 1983 sans a degree and with a poor GPA of 2.79 out of 4.00.

I returned to LaGrange College in the Spring Quarter of 1990. I graduated on June 2, 1994 with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. I had a 4.00 out of 4.00 in all my computer classes from 1990 until 1994.

I matriculated at Auburn University as a Computer Science graduate student in Fall Quarter 1998. I believe the Professor Alfred J. Menezes was instrumental in getting me accepted at Auburn University. Professor Menezes left Auburn University in the 1990s and went to his old University, the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. I graduated with a Master of Software Engineering in Summer Quarter 2000. I had a GPA of 3.880 out of 4.000. I went onto attain a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science in the Fall Semester 2005 with a 3.871 GPA.

My work for dollars record is very spotty and chock full of gaps. However, in my defense, I have done a lot of pro bono work and open-source public domain software development. I designed, implemented, and maintained a cryptography, constraint satisfaction problem, and number theory website that was widely viewed in the period 1997 until 2010 or 2011. I did a lot of sophisticated and some mundane volunteer work for the First Methodist Church of LaGrange, Georgia from 2008 to about 2011. Also, at the advanced age of 65 and 66, I had three live interviews for civilian jobs with the United States Department of Defense in 2018 and early 2019. During the period 2011 until 2018 I had two or three phone interviews and did tests for the Department of Defense.

Another bad idea suggested by my Pathways counselor was for me to volunteer to help at the local food pantry handing out grocery items to the disenfranchised in the community. If I am to volunteer again, I want my unique cognitive skills engaged. I could tutor GED or college students in chemistry, computer science, mathematics, or general science. I could help individuals learn computer programming as a hobby or vocational skill and/or teach Digital Audio Workstation operation and arranging and recording music.  Last but not least I could demonstrate the use of a MIDI keyboard and accompanying synthesizer.

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I had a mentor in my formative years of 1976 – 1985 whose name was Dr. Professor Kenneth Cooper, BS, MS, MCSE, PhD. He supposedly earned his Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry at Florida State University and Master of Computer Science Engineering at Auburn University. By my first graduation from LaGrange College on May 31, 1979, Professor Cooper had built by hand an analog computer and a primitive microprocessor computer in a wooden box. I learned how to program both computers. As stated earlier in blog entry by me, I took an Intel 8080 or 8085 microprocessor architecture course taught by Dr. Cooper Spring Quarter of 1979. I was the only student in the class. I learned how to hand assemble assembly language to convert it to machine language and enter it into the microprocessor’s computer memory via a two-digit hexadecimal display and crude keypad. One of my first programs was a countdown from FF in hexadecimal (255 decimal) to 00 Hexadecimal (0 decimal). I had to use a timer and other programming features. Professor Cooper did a lot more for me after graduation much I have written much about our mentor-mentee relationship in previous blog entries. I lost track of Professor Cooper from about 1985 until sometime in June or July 2019. I assumed he was dead until one day or night while I was incarcerated at Pathways Center Second Season, a staff member made the announcement to me that she was married to my Dr. Cooper. She knew the fact that he liked raising honeybees and was a continually active beekeeper. This staff member was Tameka (spelling etc.) who supposedly was inseminated at a sperm bank with one or more of my sperm and gave birth to a child who is now 22 years old and supposedly my child whom I had never met until the summer of 2019. My “child’s” name is pronounced roughly as “Malaysia”. These two revelations had me flabbergasted. I really did not believe that CIA cover story. See I have always felt that Kenneth Cooper was a United States Air Force driver of an A-12 Oxcart (Archangel) aircraft and thus was also an operative in the Central Intelligence Agency. Supposedly Dr. Cooper now flies a helicopter that he and the CIA bought him. I believe his real name is Colonel Kenneth S. Collins. Malaysia was pregnant with supposedly my grandchild. I will write more about Dr. Cooper and company in a later blog entry.

Back in November of 2016 I developed a C# anagram solver using an English dictionary, a hash table, and a permutation generator. An anagram is a scrambled or permuted word such as ndreni = dinner. The permutation generator is only good for words up to twelve letters. A hash table is a fast way of accessing a list.