Blending and Visualizing Data With Alteryx and Tableau

The Daytona 500 on February 15, 2026 I’ll be spending the next 9 or 10 months immersed in the data created by the magnificent NASCAR drivers. Today is the Daytona 500, which starts in a couple of hours (as I’m writing this). Each season, I do my best to learn the drivers, car numbers, and color schemes for each car. I also have to learn which team each driver represents, and which teams drive…

Introduction I have a confession to make. I love my job because #IWorkForGM. General Motors (GM) has been the best company I have ever worked for, and I hope it is the last company I work for. About a decade ago, I wrote an article about Mary Barra that has proven prescient. Her leadership is one of the reasons I love this company. Continue reading Behind the Scenes of GM’s F1 Team: Data…

Introduction I had 30 free minutes this morning, which is a rare event. For whatever reason, when Google Gemini prompted me to test a new feature, I couldn’t resist. The new feature allows you to upload a picture and it will use that picture to create a video in 1-2 minutes. You are given a limit of three trials in a day, and this used version 2.5 Flash. In the tangled web of my brain, the…

Introduction This article recounts Jett’s experiences on Day 3 of his first European trip. To view the Day 2 activities, click here. Continue reading Jett’s First European Trip – Day 3

Introduction This article shows what Jett experienced on Day 2 of his first European trip. To view the Day 1 activities, click here. Continue reading Jett’s First European Trip – Day 2

Introduction Our son Jett is now 13 years old (7th grade). As a Christmas gift, we gave him his first European experience. The gift was buried in a collapsable box that contained other treats and a clever game of temptation. This game tested his will power to resist collecting cash to be able to find the deepest-buried gift within the box. That gift was contained in a mini suitcase, with a…

NASCAR is a sport that has changed significantly over time. Using 75 years of data, I examined how race endings have changed. I compared these results to my childhood views on NASCAR.

Introduction In the podcast embedded in my previous article, I mentioned some of the changes I perceived in NASCAR over the past few decades. I surmised that NASCAR has transformed from a demolition derby-type event to a highly-engineered, much safer sport full of parity and excitement. In this short article, I will show some data that validates my observations. Before I leave the topic of that…

Let me know if you want to learn more about NASCAR and how I dive deep into the data.

Introduction This Alter Everything podcast (sound only) gives an overview of the work I have been doing over the past year for GM Performance Motor Sports. Of course, this is a high-level overview of my work rather than a detailed look into the data science and computational methods I’ve developed to do certain things with NASCAR data. To get an idea of what this discussion sounds like, you can…

Introduction With elevated real estate prices, we decided to add additional living space to our house by transforming the basement storage into usable rooms. This article shows examples of this work, and details are given on what was needed to accomplish the transformation, including itemized labor and material costs. The Original Basement Was A Big Storage Area With years of being antique…

Introduction I recently had an opportunity to discuss how I have used Alteryx over the past decade to understand climate change. In this 20 minute conversation, I discuss how the project started, how it evolved, and what I have been up to lately. Continue reading Untitled

Introduction Today’s NASCAR organization looks completely different than the one I watched as a kid growing up in Chicago in the 1970s. Back then, watching a NASCAR race was a little like watching a demolition derby. It seemed to me that the crashes created the allure within the races. Continue reading Untitled

Introduction I like time lapse photography. I typically use this technique during vacations to capture events that span minutes of time. Sometimes I see things in the time lapse movie that I didn’t see happening as I filmed it. This is one of the greatest benefits of time-lapse movies. The Port of Ravenna, Italy on July 3, 2022 Near the end of this 34 second time-lapse movie, a sail boat made…

Remini pulled some magic out of the hat in this application. I don’t know how they did that!