Monday, August 31, 2009

Don't stop believin'

There is a lot on my mind today, and of course none of it is very exciting.

First, we went for a 25-mile bike ride yesterday. It wasn't straight through, however. We biked (the long way, adding five miles) to Chris and Sonya's house and chilled there for a few hours. Cashews, pudding, and egg salad sandwiches were eaten, and much fun was had. The ride home started out tough because of the long break taken.

It's raining today and I have a doctor's appointment today (recall), so I drove into campus. And yes, the students are back, and I remember the most important rule here: Never drive to campus at ten-to-the-hour. All the students are leaving classes and rushing to their next ones. I have to remember this to force me to bike in more often. Ugh.

I am a fan of the new show Glee, which is re-airing its pilot on Wednesday, and begins the "real first episode" next week. It is about a high school glee club, so there is much singing and the humor of the show is very reminiscent of Arrested Development, so it's kind of my perfect show. In it, they have covered Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", and it's pretty awesome. I only bring this up because I was just listening to their version on my iPod, and I did so by going through my songs alphabetically, and I realized something: There are a hell of a lot of songs with "Don't" as the first word. I have around fifty in my collection alone. Not very interesting, but come on, it's Monday morning. That's the best you'll get.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Watch out

Debugging code is always fun. Well, by "fun," I mean "not fun." As anyone who does this regularly knows, writing a new code or editting old code can very rarely work perfectly on the first try. Usually though, there are millions of little bugs here and there that just make it a big pain.

So I try to avoid writing code if I can help it. Being in a highly numerical field, this is a challenge, but I've gotten pretty good at avoiding many things in my life. Right now though, the code I'm working on is rather frustrating, especially because I have no real clue what I'm doing. Additionally, I'm not sure how useful it will be, and so I could just be wasting my time.

Why do I talk about this? Well, I just spent the last half hour trying to find why my code was failing. Turns out that when I wrote some new code to replace the old, I did not erase the old. But since I wasn't paying any attention, the code failed over and over again while I kept trying to pinpoint the error. Now it runs but still doesn't work.

Can you tell it's not the most productive day?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Not a rant

I was writing a long rant about dog haters but I shortened it. Suffice to say, if you are one of those people who hate dogs or are afraid of them, then do us dog owners a favor. We will be corteous and not send our dogs to attack you if, when you are sitting on the steps in front of the entrance to my building wasting your life away, please get off your ass so I can get through with my dog instead of getting angry that my dog is getting near you. Just so you know, we cannot tunnel through you, and if you are blocking the door, then the dog is going to get near you.

See, a short rant.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Knit-ernet

The only thing worse than becoming obsessed with knitting is the existence of the internet. I have, however, discovered many exciting things and now have at least five projects lined up for the near future.

Hopefully the scarf I'm working on now will be done soon, although I will have to start limiting myself. We have sometimes forgotten that it's time to eat, and although we usually eat late, dinnertime has recently become closer to ten than ever before.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Oil

We went to get my car's oil changed yesterday (always an exciting adventure), and there was an additional thing the dealership had to do. Apparently there was an open recall on some "stop light switch" or something (a part that I gathered essentially controled the brake light when you slowed down), so it took a noticeable amount of time. Corbett came with because the dealership is in Newport News, and we went to get more supplies from our new favorite store (Michael's).

While in the waiting room, I tried to get some work done*, while Corbett worked on a test swatch for the afghan he wants to make. After much time without anyone talking to us, this woman marveled at Corbett, saying that she could never figure out how to knit. She crochets, sews, and makes quilts, but no knitting. This began a long conversation (that only ended when my car was ready) about us knitting, and quickly moving on to healthcare (this woman was smart and supported the reform with the public option), music, teaching, etc. You name it, it was discussed.

I have to say though I was surprised, because she was first of all very nice (that's not surprising, there are a lot of nice people around), but also because she was intelligent.** I was most surprised when, after she said she was a music teacher, and Corbett said he studied music history, she said, "Oh! Musicology!" And she actually knew something about it.

So the last thirty or forty minutes of waiting for the car to be ready passed more quickly because of this rather pleasant distraction.

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* Note the word "tried." I failed miserably and ended up just wasting the time away. I should have done what Corbett did.

** It seems as of late that strangers who have come up to me to strike up a conversation have not quite been so intelligent, I'm not sure why.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Knitting and Seizures

So I have had seizures in my life, two in fact. Most everyone who knows me probably knows this, and it's not a huge deal at all. When I was a child, I had one and went on medication for a while, and all was good. I was around 12, I think, and when I was almost 14, the doctor figured we could try me off the medication. A few months later (while at a Catholic Youth Convention down in Portland, Maine, two-and-a-half hours away from home no less), I had another one and basically that clinched it: I'd be on the meds forever. That was over 18 years ago, and every morning and night I take my medication. Since I'm a ritualistic kind of person, this is not an issue. It's part of my daily routine.

Of course, it has a downside. I'm practically considered a threat to democracy by many states' DMVs, and I can see why. If I went off my medication, it is conceivable that I could have a seizure while driving and therefore endanger myself and others. Both of mine though have happened late at night when I was severely sleep deprived (and both times not at home, the first was while visiting my aunt in Rhode Island). But it's just extra paperwork here and there. Now, with Maine and New York, I filled out a form when I got my license and anytime it was up for renewal. Missouri could have cared less.

Virginia, though, is hard core. They want it every two years. So right after returning from Beijing, I got a form that said "OFFICIAL NOTICE" in large, foreboding letters. I kind of freaked at first until I read it and it said to fill out this form, have a doctor fill it out, and then send it in within two months. Not a big deal, but it not means that I have to set up an appointment with my doctor, since I haven't seen him in just over a year (so they can get paid by the insurance company and I can cough up the copay), and that of course means I get to sit in a waiting room.

Now, how does this relate to knitting? Well, it's a new obsession of mine (well, ours, and Corbett's taken it up as well, and he really started it), after being taught by my mother while in Georgia last week. Right now I've just been playing around with knitting whatever and various stitches. By the time I have my appointment, I will hopefully have started my first real project, and so my question is this: Am I strong enough to bring my knitting with me to the doctor's office so while I wait forever in the waiting room, I can work on it?

As most people know, I have given up security with my masculinity long ago, and I wonder if this is just going to be the nail in the coffin...

Friday, August 14, 2009

Georgia Peach

So we spent the last week visiting my family in Georgia. It was a good week, primarily to celebrate my dad's birthday (as he says, he's 18 going on 19, and has been that since I was a kid).

The bad part is that it's a ten-hour drive, and Dante doesn't like the car. He tolerates it, but hates it. Of course, that's a small part of the journey. While we were there we saw the new Harry Potter with my mother, sister, and brother-in-law*, and Julie & Julia with just my mom. The latter movie was cute, and I enjoyed watching Meryl play Julia Child. It made me want to cook lots of things with lots of butter. Harry Potter of course was excellent.

One of the nights we hung out in Atlanta with my sister. We had sushi and then went to her little watering hole where I proceeded to not drink too much because I had to drive us home (well, me and Corbett) to my parents' house, whch was 45 minutes away. But we had a good time regardless, and I finally got to see what my sister talks about all the time.

Overall though, it was a relaxing vacation, and now I have to pretend to get back to work. That'll be easy since it's Friday. I can pretend for today and then, voila! Weekend!

(There are other things to discuss but I'll wait until later to post about them.)


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* All four of us waited to go see it until this trip, so that we could see it with my mom, so hopefully she was grateful for the sacrifice.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

I'm no better

I like to think I'm above it, but I'm not. Scrolling through my headlines this morning, I glimpsed at the various stories (and by "glimpsed" I mean read the headline and perhaps the first sentence), going past the inauguration of Ach-ma-did-you-really-say-that-ajad, or Clinton's trip to Africa, or whatever else was there this morning. I get to "Paula Abdul to leave Idol," and I click and read the whole article. I don't even watch the show, and generally can't stand her. Yet that is the story I read.

I need some time for self reflection.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

New favorite site

I have a new favorite site that sadly doesn't update often. It is The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, which is comic based on an alternate universe of 19th century England. I would actually start at the origin, where it all begins. The story is that of Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, who was a mathematic intellectual, and Charles Babbage, genius of the time who effectively invented the first computer which he called the Difference Engine. In reality, it was not built in his time and Lovelace died of cancer at the age of 36.

In this new world, the Difference Engine was built, Lovelace didn't die, and they fight crime and have wacky adventures. The only downside to this is that it isn't the author's primary "job," and thus gets updated sporadically, and often not with complete storylines. However, it is worth every second and even has historical tidbits (and corrections, if she goes off the "truth bandwagon" in regards to what actually happened).

Check it out.

Monday, August 3, 2009

I have returned

So I am back from Beijing. It was an interesting trip, and there's a lot to tell but I'm not sure how much energy I will have to write it all here. Of course, I could mark this post "Part one," but we all know how that'll turn out. There will never be any other parts. So whatever I don't post now proabably won't show up later.

The smog in Beijing is unbelievable. The best picture I have while still in Beijing of this is here:



In this one you can make out some of the buildings, in the back. More noticeable was on the Great Wall (which was amazing, by the way, even with all the smog), and you can kind of see the wall snaking through the mountains as it disappears into the smog:



The conference went well, and my talk went very well, I think. I at least got a lot of positive compliments (some of which were along the lines of: "You woke me up, and kept me awake."). I got a question in the end that put me in an awkward position, because I could have easily pissed off a lot of people if I answered it the way I thought, so I responded with, "Well, I don't have a permanent job yet, so ask me again in a couple of years." After the laughter subsided, I did say that it was a question I couldn't answer because whatever I would say would be speculation one way or the other, which was true.

One thing we noticed in Beijing was the "Beijing Belly." It's very hot and humid there (very similar to Virginia), and it's common for all the men to just walk around with their shirts on but pulled up so their (often portly) bellies are showing. Doing this as a joke, a professor (from Cambridge, no less) realized that it was a nice way to cool off while walking outside.

There are more things to report on, but I need to actually get some food. And the food I get will not be eaten with chopsticks. That's all I'll say.