2011 Holiday Party for the AFE Silicon Valley Chapter

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Michael Bukay, MS

Our AFE Holiday Party was well-attended. A lot of networking took place and fun was had by all. Click to play video.

Our party, held at the beautiful Arya Restuarant in Cupertino, was well-attended and the food was delicious! Chapter president Bob Adamo of Technical Builders, Inc. provided a brief summary of the chapter’s accomplishments in 2011, and thanked our sponsors and advertisers for providing financial support for the chapter. Board members were acknowledged and upcoming events and tours were announced for 2012. For additional information on joining the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association for Facilities Engineering contact Jim Elder at 408-855-1105 or go to http://afe.org/.

Michael Bukay is New Media Chair for the AFE Silicon Valley Chapter and owner of Michael Bukay & Associates which produces educational and marketing videos for the web. He can be reached at 510-232-9830 or http://bukaymedia.com/.

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Frog Play

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

After much persistent effort, this frog finally captured the elusive flower. Click to play video.

This frog was obsessed with attacking a flower at the BioPark in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I used to play this game with frogs when I was fishing as a kid. Goofing on a frog was one way to pass the time while waiting for the fish to bite. I am amazed at how far a frog will go away from the water when chasing a small wiggling object that it is programmed to think is food. The frog in this video chased the flower about 5′ onto dry land.

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Upcoming Changes to the Building, Electrical, Fire and Mechanical Codes

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS
Reinhard Hanselka

Reinhard Hanselka describing the cause and results of a hydrogen explosion at a battery storage facility. Click to play video.

According to Reinhard Hanselka, “We have enough regulations! Now the challenge is to streamline the regulations so that we can do business correctly, safely, and competitively.” At his recent presentation to AFE members and guests, Reinhard communicated the logic behind the regulations along with strategies for mitigation.

On November 17th Reinhard presented “Upcoming Changes to the Building, Electrical, Fire, and Mechanical Codes” to an interested group of facility professionals who posed many questions.

The presentation provided valuable information useful to facilities managers, architects, and their vendors. Reinhard emphasized that although many of the upcoming regulations have been reduced and streamlined, some have become more stringent. He emphasized how the new “L” Occupancy rules provide architects with greater flexibility when designing high rise buildings that contain laboratories that use hazardous chemicals. He also presented numerous case histories of emergencies resulting from mistakes and/or non-compliance, and emphasized how the proper selection of construction materials is critical to cost-effective operations, safety, and compliance.

Topics discussed in the November 17th presentation included changes in:

* Local amendments to international codes
* Regulations that allow the dilution of toxic gases via ventilation as an acceptable mitigation method
* Fire hazards of chromatography instruments commonly used in laboratories
* Requirements for standby, emergency, and continuous backup power supplies
* Laboratory Toxic Gas Ordinance guidelines
* Maximum allowable quantities of hazardous chemicals, and containment requirements, for different levels of high rise buildings
* Regulations affecting egress
* Fire safety during construction
* Compressed gas regulations
* Biosafety in microbiological and biomedical laboratories
* Less stringent laboratory occupancy requirements

Reinhard mentioned that an excellent resource is the http://unidocs.org website for inventory reporting and for finding information about classification of chemicals. If you are concerned or confused about how current and upcoming Code regulations may affect your business, Reinhard encourages you to submit your questions to:

Reinhard Hanselka, PE, REA of MW Group, PO Box 361656, Milpitas, CA 95036, or rhanselka@aol.com.
He receives about two thousand questions a year and answers all of them. Some of these are published in the “Reinhard’s Code Corner” of AFE Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association for Facilities Engineering newsletter.

This activity was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Chapter of the AFE. In addition to being a lot of fun, these gatherings provide excellent networking opportunities. We bring together professionals who ensure the optimal operation of plants, grounds and offices at Fortune 500 manufacturers, universities, medical centers, government agencies and innovative small firms from around the world. And, they all look to AFE as the leading technical resource on engineering issues. AFE’s mission is to provide education, certification, technical information and other relevant resources to plant and facility engineering, operation and maintenance.

Michael Bukay is New Media Chair for the AFE Silicon Valley Chapter and owner of Michael Bukay & Associates which provides industrial video communication services to facilities and vendors. He can be reached at 510-232-9830 or http://bukaymedia.com/.

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Red Fox Along the Bay Trail in Richmond, CA

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS
Red Fox

Red Fox hunting along the Landfill Loop Trail in Richmond, CA. Click to play video.

I encountered this red fox while walking around the Landfill Loop Trail at Garbage Mountain. I was surprised to see the fox out in mid day. It appeared to be hunting. Unlike our native tree-climbing little native grey fox, which feeds primarily inland on berries and small rodents, the red fox is a larger predator that preys on ducks and shore birds, including rare and endangered rails.

The Landfill Loop Trail incorporates fantastc views of San Pablo Bay, Wildcat and San Pablo Creeks with remarkable examples of industrial water conservation and reuse, resource recovery, electrical generation, recycling and recreation.
click here for a trail guide and additional information.

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Spider Web Construction in Slow Motion

Posted on October 16, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

I thought the web-building process was amazing before I grabbed my camera–but even more so after I slowed down the footage to 10% of normal speed! Click to play video.

Spiders are incredible engineers. This is a slow motion and normal speed close-up movie of a common garden spider building a web. I thought the web-building process was amazing before I grabbed my camera–but even more so after I slowed down the footage to 10% of normal speed! So fast and efficient is this spider as it extracts silk from its abdomen, shifts its grip on the silk fibers from claw to claw, measures distances, and creates just the right amount of tension to keep the web taught. Of great interest to me was how the spider attached the silk fiber at each junction.

After a little research on “How Things Work” at http://tinyurl.com/3vewxjk I learned that spiders make both sticky and non-sticky silk fibers when constructing a web. The non-sticky silk fibers are the radial fibers going from the center of the web to the outside edges. The sticky “cross beam” fibers are the ones that are being constructed in this film. At each silk junction a new sticky silk fiber is attached to a supporting non-sticky fiber. While watching how the spider adeptly manipulated the web, its position, tension on the silk, extraction of the silk from its abdomen, and the attachment of the thread at each junction, I was filled with wonder! So, I decided to slow the motion to 10% of normal speed so I could better see the details.

At first I thought the spider tied some sort of a knot at each junction. However, when I watch in slow motion, this does not appear to be the case. The spider uses a claw to grab the target non-sticky fiber, and appears to attach the sticky fiber to a location below the claw. I suspect that the spider’s leg has another claw or spike (hidden from view) that it uses to line up the thread and hold it in place at the junction point while it pulls the abdomen away to extract the next thread of silk. What really amazes me is how well the silk threads stick together! It looks like they are being held together by a natural form of contact cement! If any spider experts watching this better understand how the silk junction bond is formed, please leave a explanatory comment.

In case you are wondering what the white stuff that the spider is chewing on at the end, it is pieces of silk that it cleaned up from the old web that it is recycling.

Here are some technical details about this shoot: The spider is about 1″ long and my lens distance varied from about 6-12′ from the spider. I used a Panasonic GH2 with the stock 14 – 140 mm lens and recorded the footage at 1080i and edited it at 720p30.

Meanwhile, I also discovered that scientists have successfully implanted silk making genes from spiders into goats and are harvesting the silk from the goat’s milk! The high tensile strength of spider silk combined with its flexibility and stretch ability appear to have great potential for use in many fields including medicine.
For more on this go to http://tinyurl.com/2eew8n5.

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AFE Tour of the Pipe Trades Training Center in San Jose, CA

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

 

The tour included a demonstration of how improperly sized piping can result in water hammer. Click to play video.

Facilities operation and maintenance personnel are typically kinesthetic learners. They tend to learn best by doing and observing, rather than following complex written procedures. On July 27, 2011 the Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE) members and guests toured of the state-of-the-art, 100,000 square foot Loyd E. Williams Pipe Trades Training Center, where UA 393 apprentices and journeymen learn and hone their skills. You will be amazed at the vast array of hands-on training technologies, labs, and demonstrations used to train our local trades professionals. The tour included visits to:

·    Rigging Area for training how to lift heavy objects such as air handlers, boilers, and chillers;
·    Basic Electricity and Digital Control Lab for training on how to work on the vast array of energy management control systems;
·    Pneumatics Lab for learning how to work with compressed air and how to integrate pneumatic control systems with the newer digital control systems;
·    Backflow Prevention Lab for learning how to install, test, and repair backflow preventers;
·    Test and Balance Lab for learning how to adjust and balance HCAC systems for optimum efficiency;
·    Model Hospital Operating Room for learning about piping systems for medical gases and adjusting air flow in an operating room;
·    Steam Lab that uses glass piping to facilitate learning by enabling students to observe the liquid/gas change of state; and a
·    Water Hammer Demonstration using ultraviolet light and glass piping to illustrate how improperly sized piping can result in water hammer.

Click for more information on the Pipe Trades Training Center.

Presentation on the Use of Video
After the tour, Michael Bukay gave a presentation about how facilities personnel and vendors can harness the power of video to save time and money. Click to view a synopsis of the “Don’t Just Tell Me…SHOW ME!” presentation.

Michael Bukay is an Industrial Video Producer and the New Media Chair of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the AFE. Examples of his work can be seen at http://bukaymedia.com/.

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Don’t Just Tell Me…SHOW ME!

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

A video demonstration of the rope-eating Chopper Pump. Click to play video.

This video presentation demonstrates how videos can be used to enhance instructional programs for Facilities Engineers and their vendors. Operation and maintenance personnel are typically kinesthetic learners. They tend to learn best by doing and observing, rather than following complex written procedures. Videos are ideal for kinesthetic learners.
Words are first converted into images for understanding. Video training provides a direct approach by supplying the intended imagery, thus reducing the chance for misinterpretation. The effective use of videos can help companies save money, make money, and make life easier.
Topics include the use of videos to:
  • Demonstrate the benefits of your company’s products, capabilities, and services;
  • Show how to operate and maintain complex equipment;
  • Train personnel on how to deal with site-specific critical equipment during emergencies; and the importance of
  • Documenting special projects for training, archiving, and marketing purposes.

This video is based excerpts from a presentation made to the Silicon Valley Chapter of the Association of Facilities Engineering (AFE) on July 27, 2011.

A special thank you goes out to the staff of the Pipe Trades Training Center for hosting this event; and to Jim Elder of Computer Air/Power Systems, Bob Adamo and Kady Blake of Technical Builders, and Raffy Espiritu of Clean Innovation for helping create and organize this event.

This activity was sponsored by the Silicon Valley Chapters of the AFE. In addition to being a lot of fun, these gatherings provide excellent networking opportunities. We bring together professionals who ensure the optimal operation of plants, grounds and offices at Fortune 500 manufacturers, universities, medical centers, government agencies and innovative small firms from around the world. And, they all look to AFE as the leading technical resource on engineering issues. AFE’s mission is to provide education, certification, technical information and other relevant resources to plant and facility engineering, operation and maintenance.

Michael Bukay is New Media Chair for the AFE Silicon Valley Chapter and owner of Michael Bukay & Associates which provides industrial video communication services to facilities and vendors. He can be reached at 510-232-9830 or http://bukaymedia.com/. 

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Site Visit: Energy Management Information Systems at Google

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

A cluster of wide screen monitors display real-time EMIS data.

AFE members and guests had the privilege of visiting Google’s West Campus building 5 in Mountain View, CA. to take a behind-the-scene look at the Internet search giant’s Energy Management Information Systems (EMIS). Click to see a photo montage of this event.

After an exclusive lunch provided to the sold-out event by Google chefs, we were treated to a slide show presentation by Richard Celio, P.E. of longtime EMIS provider Applied Power Technologies on “Energy Management Information Systems Success Criteria: The missing piece of the puzzle.” The presentation topics included: why BMS/EMS information, alone, does not provide answers; how to leverage EMIS investments with customized automated reports sent to your email inbox or smart phone; and how to define success criteria by using cost, reliability, quality, impact, and efficiency indicators.

Following this, Google engineers presented real-time monitoring displays and in-depth discussions on:  customizing energy management dashboards; augmenting EMIS with display monitors, Gmail, and Android smart phones; energy projects including cogeneration, solar, and fuel cell technologies; maintenance contracts; automated demand systems for temperature control; just-in-time resource management; and evaluating the cost-effectiveness of retrofitting older buildings and calculating the ROI for upgrades.

 Our hosts and presenters demonstrated tremendous passion for their work! Google hires top-talent and provides them with the resources and freedom to experiment and innovate and to help usher in new energy-wise technologies. Combining the talents of facility engineers with information technology professionals has greatly facilitated the evolution of their energy management system. Engineers started with just one building and gradually added more buildings to the EMIS.

After the presentations and extensive attendee networking, Asim Tahir of Google guided us to the wall of wide-screen monitors that display real-time energy management information from throughout the campus.

A special thank you goes out to Dan Hoffman, Pat Nielsen, Dan Cocosa, Asim Tahir, and Kristina Dee for hosting this event and conducting very informative presentations and discussions.

Thanks to Andy Taylor of APT for helping create the event and reminding us why we invest in EMIS. If you were unable to attend, or would like to review Rich Celio’s presentation on “Success Criteria: The missing piece of the puzzle” you may download it at http://www.apt4power.com/upcoming_events.html. You may also view a slide show of the event at http://www.bukaymedia.com/afe.htm.

To learn more about how EMIS might work in your application contact APT at 408-342-0790 or http://apt4power.com; or the Association for Facilities Engineering at 571-203-7171 or http://www.afe.org.

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Michael Bukay is New Media Chair for the AFE Silicon Valley Chapter and owner of Michael Bukay & Associates which provides industrial video communication services to facilities and vendors. He can be reached at 510-232-9830 or http://bukaymedia.com.

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Gulls Gone Wild in Pt. Richmond, CA

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

Gull Gathering

Gulls after a day of feasting on herring roe.

Click on Gulls Gone Wild to view a 6.5 minute music video documenting the beauty, exuberance, and chaos of this natural history experience along the Bay Trail in Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline in Point Richmond, CA. The herring first came to Point Richmond on (or shortly before) February 4, 2011 to spawn after commercial roe fishing boats reached their limits allowing successive runs throughout the month. Harbor seals and sea lions came to eat the herring; then the gulls and diving ducks came to feast on the carpets of eggs that covered the kelp, eelgrass, pier pilings, and rocks along the shore. This documentary covers about 10 days of the event.

Click cavier feast extraordinaire for more imagery of this amazing event! For more information about the phenomena from Bruce and Sandra Beyaert, click Point Richmond Herring Run.

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What about Videos for Smart Phones and Tablet Computers?

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Michael Bukay, MS

  

Watching video on a smart phone

Watching video on small screens is becoming very convenient and common these days.

Five years ago, I didn’t think that watching videos on small mobile devices would become very popular. I was wrong! After using an iPhone for a year and a half, I find that I watch more web videos on my phone than I do sitting at my desk in front of a computer. I’d rather lean back and watch a video than lean forward. It is a matter of convenience, portability, and comfort. 

Management Embraces Smart Phones
I also notice that many of the managers and decision-makers I work with are frequently checking their emails and conducting business over the web on their smart phones. Once they read an email on their phone, they often don’t read it again on their desktop computer. If the email includes a link to a video, they may attempt to play it on their smart phone while it still has their attention. If a marketing video doesn’t play during this window of opportunity, they may never look at it. 

Apple vs. Adobe
Unfortunately, Apple does not permit its iPhones and iPads to play Flash videos. Currently, most web videos are encoded in the Adobe Flash format and work great for desktop computer viewing. Apple is pushing for a newer technology called HTML5 that takes the dependency of web video away from the Adobe Flash player, and puts it more in the hands of application developers. 

However, HTML5 is not yet ready for prime time. Even when it is ready, it may take years for businesses to create HTML5 versions of their existing Flash web videos to be playable on Apple’s mobile devices. So, Flash encoded web videos will still be around for the foreseeable future. Most industry experts do not expect Apple to ever allow Flash videos to play on these devices. However, the competition is supporting Flash videos. 

Android Smart Phones Play Flash Videos
Android smart phones use a free and open operating system provided by Google and are advertised to support Flash videos. We are seeing a repeat episode of open vs. closed operating systems similar to the Apple vs. PC wars that began in the 1980s. 

Currently the adoption rate of Android phones, sold by many manufacturers, outstrips the iPhone. So, how well do the Android smart phones play Flash videos? 

To test this, I went to my local Costco and dialed-in some Flash videos from my website to see how well they play on the latest Android powered devices. I tested a Motorola Droid X™ and a small tablet− the Samsung Galaxy Tab.™ Both devices played Flash very well over the wireless connection at Costco. I did not test video playback at Costco over a 3G network. 

I also had a chance to play a Flash video over the 3G network on a friend’s Android phone (Samsung 4G) while we were taking a hike. The Flash video was choppy. However, when I played the same video over the 3G network off of YouTube’s servers, it played smoothly. The quality was lower because YouTube “intelligently degrades” the quality of its videos when the network connection is slow. 

A Work-around Solution
Meanwhile, there is a way to get your videos to play on the iPhone. Six months ago, all of the videos on my web site were encoded in Flash and would not play on the iPhone. Recently, I placed almost all my public web videos on YouTube and embedded them in web pages on my website. YouTube automatically makes several encoded versions for each video including one that plays on the iPhone and probably every future smart phone that will play videos. 

Now, when someone with an iPhone clicks on a video link to my web site YouTube knows that the request was made by an iPhone and delivers an iPhone compatible version (probably in the h.264 format) and the video plays! If the viewer’s phone has a temporarily slow wireless connection, YouTube reduces the quality of the video so that it still plays. When someone using a desktop computer clicks on the same video link, YouTube sends a different Flash encoded version to their PC. YouTube does all of this for free! 

Smart phones and tablet computers are evolving very rapidly. My recommendation is that you test the video features you want at the store where you purchase the phone. One option is to test the smart phone at my website at bukaymedia.com and compare how well it plays Flash and YouTube videos.   

Conclusions
Smart phones and tablet computers are likely to replace a large percentage of laptop computers during the next few years. In your training and marketing video communication strategy, it is worthwhile to consider posting a version of your public videos on YouTube (or other video hosting services that support the h.264 option). These videos can be embedded into your web site so the viewer does not leave your website to watch them. 

Also, during this period of “video player wars” it is a good idea to have the option to play the video in Flash. This strategy will increase your video exposure to the rapidly growing audience of people who use smart phones. 

From what I saw at Costco, I think I would be very happy to own a Droid X smart phone and a Samsung Galaxy Tab! Although I love my iPhone, I will consider switching to an Android phone with Verizon when it comes time to renew my iPhone contract with AT&T. 

Image source: Istockphoto 

Michael Bukay, MS
mbukay@comcast.net
510-232-9830
bukaymedia.com 

Michael Bukay, MS has over 30 years experience in the operation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of high purity water systems in the biotech, semiconductor, and power industries; and 9 years of digital filmmaking experience. His company specializes in providing industrial and commercial video communication services.

Posted in AFE, Industrial Training Video, Web Video | 3 Comments