Balázs Vándor, aka. Balu


Welcome to my homepage!
IF YOU ARE CONFUSED ABOUT WHY YOU HAVE LANDED HERE, IT MIGHT BE BECAUSE THE OLD GEOCITIES DOMAINS ARE GOING AWAY, AND THE LINKS TO ANY OF MY PAGES ARE BEING REDIRECTED TO MY MAIN PAGE, THIS ONE. SEE IF YOU FIND YOUR INTENDED TARGET BELOW:

Here are Links to my other pages:

Please visit my Photo Album for links to all my travel pics.
The Volvo 240 Modifications Page: I compiled what I learned about these cars to make the process easier for others.
I also put together a list of Volvo Parts Places and other Resources.
My page with all the Volvo parts I have for sale.
My Cars, current, past, and some interesting cars in the family.


Education

I started my Master's degree in Industrial Engineering in September 1996 at the Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE) department at Georgia Tech in Atlanta and finished it in December 1998 with a major in Human-Machine Systems and a minor in Production Systems. My interests include automotive design regarding ergonomics and safety, cockpit design, as well as more traditional industrial engineering fields such as manufacturing engineering, which is the field where I ended up finding a job.

At Georgia Tech my advisor was Dr.Amy Pritchett an associate professor at ISyE and at the School of Aerospace Engineering.

Her research involves the aeronautical side of Human-Machine Systems. Her area of research that I was also involved in examining the human interface of collision avoidance systems such as TCAS or GPWS. We used closely spaced parallel approaches as a case study and I wrote my thesis in this subject. The results have wider implications on alerting system design, such as how closely can pilots be expected to follow unexpected automatic alerts.

My thesis, started during summer quarter '97, examines the above mentioned human interface for cockpit collision avoidance systems. We examined how different displays, alerts and their combination affect how long pilots wait to react after an automatic alert. I wrote my thesis on this subject, defended it in August 1998, and finished the after-defense changes in November (after which I went home for a one-month vacation!).

The results of my experiment indicated that if subject was given a display that was showing the underlying logic of the alerting system, then they were more likely to follow the automatic alerts.
Although this might seem as common sense, there have been systems introduced into the cockpit that did not display the information on which an alert was based. Even worse are systems whose alert might contradict the information available to the pilots from other systems. Worse again is the design assumption of many of these systems that the pilots will follow the commands given exactly and immediately. So there is a a very real application for the kind of results that came out of my experiment.

I got my Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Industrial Engineering and a minor in Management in December '95 from the University of Minnesota in beautiful, fun, but often cold Minneapolis.

Work

I started my working career as a consultant for Tefen USA , an industrial engineering consulting firm. I have worked with them on several projects in the pharmaceutical and semiconductor industries in exciting places such as Puerto Rico and Belgium, and ordinary places, like New Jersey and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania.

In October 2001 I moved to Fort Lauderdale to start working as an Industrial Engineer for Andrx Pharmaceuticals, which has since been acquired by Watson. I was with them for almost 4 years, and had various industrial engineering and project management related duties. I have been thinking for a long time about going out on my own and early in 2005 I had decided that the time has come: I left Andrx in July 2005. I travelled for a month in Hungary and Italy, then headed South to Colombia and Brazil (see my Photo Album), and finally did a little tour in the SouthEast USA with some friends. When it was finally time to get to work, I started a property management company called Florida HomeMinders. Some years later I still have the business, and have even expanded to vacation rentals, but I also got back into consulting, working for Results Consulting.

Interests



Why get excited over such a boring bunch of cars, you ask? My friend Kirk Houser has a whole page on why drive Volvos. Here's my story: It was in Minneapolis that I bought my first Volvo (a '81 242 DL), in the fall of 1993. It had 202,000 miles on its broken odometer. I have travelled to places like Quebec and New Orleans with that car and I liked it so much that all my daily drivers since then have been Volvos. I enjoy working on old Volvos, mainly 240's. They are durable, safe and fun cars that are easy to work on while being technologically advanced for their age. In other words, they make sense, instead of making a fashion statement.
See My Volvos page for more detail on my current and past cars.


More Interests

Now that you labeled me a gearhead, let me tell you that I have many more interests, like reading, traveling (and getting to know different cultures), languages (living in SE Florida, I'm trying to pick up as much Spanish as I can), cooking, environmental awareness, and various sports like dragon boating, biking, kayaking, sailing, skiing, hiking, camping, canoeing, windsurfing, and most importantly, SCUBA DIVING. South Florida is a great place to dive, and in the warmer months I usually dive every week.
I also enjoy working with my hands, from small projects around the house to woodworking projects.
My friend Roy introduced me to futorology, specifically how emerging technologies like super-fast computers, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology will shape the not-so-distant future.
In early 2004 I got involved with an all-volunteer group called the Wildlife Research Team. I volunteered with them most Saturdays for many years, usually working on Project Baitfish, the habitat restoration at Matheson Hammock, a mangrove forest just South of Miami that was devastated by Hurricane Andrew. The Team only uses muscle power: we take canoes to the project and work with our hands to free up the old waterways. I really enjoy that I can do something useful for nature, while enjoying the outdoors!
For a while I was also involved with the local chapter of the Center for Inquiry (CFI) , a secular humanist organization that stands for science and reason.
On a totally different note, since 2005 I have been involved with a dragon boating team, Puff, and go to practice several times a week. Dragonboating originated in China and is becoming very popular in this country. There are up to 20 paddlers in a boat, as well as a steerperson and a drummer. The practices are very intensive, and I enjoy both the exercise and the team spirit. For pictures, see Simon's pictures!
Things that I'm NOT interested in are watching TV (especially sports, which should be practiced, not watched), playing video games, following the lives of celebrities, and anyhing else that falls in the category of watching someone else's life instead of living my own.

A Bit About My Family and My Home

I'm from Budapest, the lovely capital of Hungary. If you want to see my city, go on this picture tour of Budapest.
Although I'm from Hungary, I spent much of my life elsewhere. Growing up, I lived in "The Eternal City", Rome, for five years. Much later, my twin brother Csaba and I moved to Oklahoma City to finish high school while living with our aunt and uncle, Marti and Jim.
Csaba graduated in June 1998 from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, OK, with a degree in Mechanical Engineering Technology. He is much more of a car nut then I am, mostly into Italian cars, but interested in anything funky, mostly European. He has even worked on a Citroen DS for a friend! In 2009 he and a friend started their own Fiat parts business, AutoRicambi!

About the same time we moved to Oklahoma, my parents moved to the Republic of Cape Verde when my dad got a job with FAO.
Cape Verde is a beautiful set of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, off of the shores of Senegal. I spent many Christmas vacations there, swimming and windsurfing in the ocean. My Dad's next post was Kigali, the capital of Rwanda . After about five years there, they moved to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. A few years ago they retired and moved back to Hungary. My Africa-travel pages are available again in my Photo Album, but alas only the pics - I lost all the commentary.

I've seen a page that claimed to be the last page on the Internet not linked to the Dilbert Zone. Let them be right:


I found another comic strip that I like at least as much as, if not better than Dilbert: it's Sherman's Lagoon.

It's about Sherman, a white shark, and other creatures living in a tropical lagoon. They have a very funny perspective on our world! I love this comic strip and highly recommend it!

And another totally different strip is XKCD, grown out of hacker culture. Very interesting, insightful, funny:



Another source of internet merriment is A Word a Day (AWAD) which sends a new vocabulary word to your mailbox every day, along with its origin and pronunciation. They also include a wise or humorous quote in each mail. Some say that their mailbox gets full too quickly already, and I tend to agree, but AWAD is only 5 mails a week, and it adds a bit of sanity to the day (a word a day keeps the shrink away?). Find below the word for today:





Links to my friends' pages

My brother Csaba's Page has some pics of his cars (FIAT and Volvo), some tech tips for Fiats, and many pics.
My friend Roy's Page makes for a very interesting reading on variety of subjects, like science, the future, linguistics, and such.
Check out Geoff's page , he has a lot of writings, info, statistics on rationality and current events. Very interesting.
Volvogirl's Page. If you need Volvo care or parts in Southern Maine, Lee Holman is the person to contact! Unfortunately, her page is currently down, but you can contact her at horses @ megalink.net
. Kirk's Volvo Page contains one of the best 1800 pages on the net, an 1800 register, a "Why Drive Volvos?" page, a great link page and many pictures.

Links to organizations I belong

Wildlife Research Team: volunteering for habitat restoration in the mangroves of South Florida.
Puff Dragon Boat Team: great exercise and great team spirit!
The Center for Inquiry: an organization for the promotion of science and reason.
Mensa International, an organization for high-minded exchange!
Broward Atheists, a social group for those who do not go to church!
Volvo Club of America: I think the name says it all.
The Institute of Industrial Engineers lets me keep up with developments in my profession while I try a different career!

Links to other pages

Check out Marshall Brain's Robotic Nation page. This is the guy who founded the How stuff works? website. In RN he talks about how technology will change the future, concentrating on robots.

If you have any comments regarding this page, feel free to E-mail me!

© Balázs Vándor 1996