I'm going to put all my Harry Potter related thoughts into a different blog post, the one below this, so those trying to avoid spoilers will know to avoid that entry.
Well, it's been 3 weeks it looks like. Wow. I think I could keep putting this off indefinitely, but there's been a lot going on the last few weeks, so at least that should be something to keep the hungry masses yearning for more Eric satisfied.
Well, I'll admit, I've spent a lot time looking at sports. It's been a crazy few weeks. Oklahoma had to vacate all of their wins from 2005, including their Holiday Bowl victory over Oregon. And that was one of the least interesting stories! I'm not really sure if I agree with the NCAA on this one, it appeared that Oklahoma had done everything promptly when they found out about the shady car dealership employment, but I guess they said that due to "lack of institutional control" led to that oversight. Too bad. In the profootball world, training camps have started! Only 1 month left until football is back in our world. Oh the excitement. And of course, in other NFL news, Micheal Vick. Wow. Frankly, if half of the things in that indictment are true, our animal cruelty laws (which he is currently not under indictment for) are not nearly tough enough for what he deserves. Trial starts this November.
Ben was in town last weekend! Things we did: went to the Sox game (White Sox at Red Sox, the Red Sox won 8-5, powered by two 3-run homers, one by Manny and another by Mike Lowell.), went to the White Stripes (excellent concert, they played a lot of old stuff, Elephant or earlier, including the songs I quoted in my wedding vows, which was sweet. Sadly, due to a ticket snafu on my part (How was I suppose to know there were two areas of GA?!? What's up with that?), Ben and I were separated from Steph for the concert, and she wasn't feeling too good. But it was still cool.), and hung around in Boston. And now that I think about it, we didn't get cannolis. So really, that visit was a failure. We take people visiting us very seriously. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
Steph wrote a piece of "drabble" fiction (100 words) called "Nemesis", which has been accepted for publication in an online literary magazine, Boston Literary Magazine. More details to come on when you can find her first official publication, but give her a big congratulations!
Well, work has certainly been really busy lately. I've got 3 different things going on right now, and I think I could spend all my time on any one of them and still be busy. It's been a bit of a balancing act, and I'm still working on my planning skills to figure out what needs to get done when. But slowly but surely, progress is being made!
We saw The Simpsons Movie Friday night. I was thinking as we saw it, am I too old? I mean, I just didn't want to see the midnight showing. This is The Simpsons Movie we're talking about. If this had come out in high school, I would have waited in line for hours for the midnight showing. And I knew some people who were going to the midnight showing at some of the various theaters. But honestly, I just wanted to get my usual nights sleep, and I had some stuff that I wanted to finish the next day at work. That's right, I was thinking about work and put it ahead of The Simpsons Movie. I must be too old. At least I saw it opening day... But I can highly recommend it (especially Spiderpig). Think of it as an extra-long good-but-not-great episode from season 9 or so. So that's totally worth it right there.
In other news, I've had several doctors appointments lately. I decided after I got back from TASI that I should get some checkups. My eyes have not been as sharp as they used to, and I've been thinking about moving closer to the front of the room to read the board better. Anyway, I still don't need glasses, but the Optometrist said I'll probably need distance glasses in another 5 years or so. Next up was the dentist. Still no cavities, and still haranguing me for not flossing. In 2 weeks is the full physical. Given my lack of exercise and poor diet, I can't imagine that's going to go well. But if I work out really hard the night before, that will undo years of bodily neglect, right?
Lastly, Final Fantasy XII is moving along slower than I had hoped because of all the other stuff going on, but the sooner I get that done, the sooner Blogging The Simpsons can begin. Steph and I watched the Original Trilogy (theatrical release) over the last month, and then last night decided to watch The Phantom Menace. First off, due to the damn special edition, there were definitely some problems with how I remember certain things. I hope to get that all straightened out in my head. But also, you can really see how certain scenes, like the Cloud City, really got brought to life with a bit of a face lift. I guess I can see what George Lucas wanted to do with the original trilogy, but ultimately, as an artist, you just have to say 'it is done' and move on. Also, Phantom Menace not as terrible as I remember, but there are definitely some weird & bad points. And child actors always suck. We have to remember this. Just because a few here and there don't completely suck, that's the exception, not the rule.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Canto LI
This post is all about Harry, so if you don't want to know anything, I wouldn't read anymore. I'll even give a couple extra spaces to make sure you won't accidentally see something you didn't want.
First up, the movie. I thought it was OK. Not great, I don't really think any of the movies are great, with Azkaban being the best so far. The problem is that the books really do fill up the world that even a well done movie can't compare to. My excitement was mostly for the two scenes where Dumbledore decides to kick ass: when he "escapes" from his office from Minister Fudge and later when he duels Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic. The office escape was highly disappointing. He just grabbed onto Fawkes and burst into flames. It didn't show him taking out a few Aurors (although one was working for the Order) and knocking out Fudge. It could have been so much cooler. And the duel with Voldermort was OK, but it lacked a lot of the extra oomph that comes through in the book. In the book, Harry is basically just tossed about as the two most powerful wizards of this age fight it out. I really didn't get that sense in the movie. But I thought Umbridge was great, and even if some things weren't the same in the book, continuity wise it won't make much of a difference. Again, OK, not great. I'll probably see it again when it plays at the cheap student "theater" this fall at MIT.
On to The Deathly Hallows. Well, it's all over. The book does a really good job of conveying the tense and desperate situation that Harry, Ron and Hermione are in, even if it goes a little long in the we're-on-the-run chapters. I think my biggest problem with this book was Dumbledore. I really felt Harry should have had something major to overcome in this book in order to defeat Voldemort. Instead, there was no Benedict Arnold in Snape. And the "errors" that Dumbledore made with Harry, even Harry agrees with in the end. If he had known very early on that he was going to have to die when facing Voldemort, he might not have been able to do it at the end. Best not to think about it too much. Instead, Dumbledore was completely exonerated for his arrogance and personal flaws. I guess one could say that he died because of this, but ultimately he was right about everything and this led to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. This is what I'm complaining about with the resolution of the book: Harry didn't have to do much but get killed once, chat with Dumbledore, then cast Expelliarmus. It was just putting together all the pieces that Dumbledore had left behind for him. And Snape, who had been the most interesting character from a whats-going-to-happen-to-him standpoint, didn't really have much going on. Again, Dumbledore was completely right about him, and he sacrificed himself for Lily. Wouldn't it have been much more interesting if Snape really had been a Death Eater? Wouldn't that have made a much more interesting side part to the final battle? Instead, he was in love with Lily the whole time, but it was really unclear what his feelings about Harry were. I guess in the end he felt he had to do the right thing for Lily, but why? It turns out that even in his private talks with Dumbledore, he doesn't much like Harry. And 16 years is a long time to hold on to that guilt. It turns out that in the art of Legilimancy, the ordering goes Dumbledore better than Snape better than Voldemort. Really, Snape is better than Voldemort? It's not like this is one of those skills that Voldemort considers beneath him.
Ah, I'm not sure I'm explaining my frustration right, but I did really enjoy the ending. I know she's said she would kill more of the main characters, but ultimately she pulled back a little bit. And I really think that a honest flaw in Dumbledore, such as trusting Snape too much because he believes in his own ability to read people too much, would have made Harry's success all the more satisfying. But Harry in suburbia with Ginny, Ron and Hermione seems so quaint that I can't help but smile a little bit.
First up, the movie. I thought it was OK. Not great, I don't really think any of the movies are great, with Azkaban being the best so far. The problem is that the books really do fill up the world that even a well done movie can't compare to. My excitement was mostly for the two scenes where Dumbledore decides to kick ass: when he "escapes" from his office from Minister Fudge and later when he duels Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic. The office escape was highly disappointing. He just grabbed onto Fawkes and burst into flames. It didn't show him taking out a few Aurors (although one was working for the Order) and knocking out Fudge. It could have been so much cooler. And the duel with Voldermort was OK, but it lacked a lot of the extra oomph that comes through in the book. In the book, Harry is basically just tossed about as the two most powerful wizards of this age fight it out. I really didn't get that sense in the movie. But I thought Umbridge was great, and even if some things weren't the same in the book, continuity wise it won't make much of a difference. Again, OK, not great. I'll probably see it again when it plays at the cheap student "theater" this fall at MIT.
On to The Deathly Hallows. Well, it's all over. The book does a really good job of conveying the tense and desperate situation that Harry, Ron and Hermione are in, even if it goes a little long in the we're-on-the-run chapters. I think my biggest problem with this book was Dumbledore. I really felt Harry should have had something major to overcome in this book in order to defeat Voldemort. Instead, there was no Benedict Arnold in Snape. And the "errors" that Dumbledore made with Harry, even Harry agrees with in the end. If he had known very early on that he was going to have to die when facing Voldemort, he might not have been able to do it at the end. Best not to think about it too much. Instead, Dumbledore was completely exonerated for his arrogance and personal flaws. I guess one could say that he died because of this, but ultimately he was right about everything and this led to the downfall of Lord Voldemort. This is what I'm complaining about with the resolution of the book: Harry didn't have to do much but get killed once, chat with Dumbledore, then cast Expelliarmus. It was just putting together all the pieces that Dumbledore had left behind for him. And Snape, who had been the most interesting character from a whats-going-to-happen-to-him standpoint, didn't really have much going on. Again, Dumbledore was completely right about him, and he sacrificed himself for Lily. Wouldn't it have been much more interesting if Snape really had been a Death Eater? Wouldn't that have made a much more interesting side part to the final battle? Instead, he was in love with Lily the whole time, but it was really unclear what his feelings about Harry were. I guess in the end he felt he had to do the right thing for Lily, but why? It turns out that even in his private talks with Dumbledore, he doesn't much like Harry. And 16 years is a long time to hold on to that guilt. It turns out that in the art of Legilimancy, the ordering goes Dumbledore better than Snape better than Voldemort. Really, Snape is better than Voldemort? It's not like this is one of those skills that Voldemort considers beneath him.
Ah, I'm not sure I'm explaining my frustration right, but I did really enjoy the ending. I know she's said she would kill more of the main characters, but ultimately she pulled back a little bit. And I really think that a honest flaw in Dumbledore, such as trusting Snape too much because he believes in his own ability to read people too much, would have made Harry's success all the more satisfying. But Harry in suburbia with Ginny, Ron and Hermione seems so quaint that I can't help but smile a little bit.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Canto L
So it's been more than a week. I kept telling myself to get around to doing this, but, well, you know... Stuff. But there's now lots of things to talk about! And some of it may even be interesting.
Blogging the Simpsons will start up in about a month or so (maybe to coincide with the release of Season 10), but right now I'm fully back into Final Fantasy XII mode. I'm really looking forward to doing The Simpsons, my plan is just to sit down, watch an episode, then write whatever I feel about it. What will that take? 30-40 minutes a night? I bet I can get through 5+ a week. Let's see here, 10 seasons is about 220 episodes, so thats about 44 weeks worth of material. That's almost a whole year's worth of blogging! You'll just have to keep coming back. I'm really looking forward to some of the more obscure episodes that I don't quote as frequently. Will it be like watching them new (even though, most likely, I will have seen it several times), or just a refresher? We'll find out together! Also, FYI, The Simpsons Movie is coming at the end of the month.
The Fourth was last week. We went out to the Arboretum with Steph's new camera and some friends. It was a lot of fun, and the weather cooperated while we were there in the afternoon. On our way home, however, it started to rain and wasn't looking too good for fireworks weather. So we stayed home and Steph did her homework for the class she's taking at Tufts this summer. And I played Final Fantasy. So no cool fireworks pictures, but maybe next year.
But the real big news was on Thursday, The Retrofits were in town! I went out to see Jake, George, Brud, and Dusty. Also with were Andrew, and their photographer whose name I forget. Actually, they were running late, but managed to squeeze in all of 4 songs. Due to some sort of scheduling snafu, it was Punk Night, so the next 3 bands (and the audience) were of a different flavor of music. While it may not have been their best gig ever, afterwards we had a great time. You know partying like rock stars? I'm not even sure you need to be a rock star to actually party like that, just somewhere in the music business. After parallel parking the passenger van with trailer in the North End (!! - you have no idea how awesome that is, people walking by actually applauded us), did some dinner at Boston Beer Works. Not the greatest place, but the kitchen is open late and they serve beer. Unnamed individuals went off to have sex in the van, but couldn't find it. Others went home with some women who were at the show, despite needing to leave very early in the morning to get to a show in North Carolina (!! - 14 hour car trip for a show at 9:30pm). They took a cab back to my place a 3:30am. We pretty much stayed up all night hanging out back at our place. Steph woke up around 3 or 4, and stayed awake for an hour. They decided just to leave at 5am, so around 4:30 everyone was slowly moving around trying to find everything and go to the bathroom, take showers, use the computer (internet access has been spotty for them), and so on. But they managed to leave around 5am, and even made it to the next show in freaking North Carolina. It was really interesting to see the dynamics of a traveling band at work. Who does what, who's angry at who, who's taking responsibility, etc. I sure hope they make it. If you haven't bought their CD yet, iTunes and Amazon.com both have it.
Anyway, I was in no condition to do physics that friday, but I had a great time. I miss those guys. It's good to cut loose every so often. I don't think I could live like that for more than a couple days (apparently they've been keeping that up for more than 2 weeks, and still had 2 more to go), but I had a great time anyway.
Also, last Thursday, July 5th, was one of the greatest days in the history of science. In 1687, Issac Newton published his Principia. It is considered the birth of modern physics formulated in terms of mathematics. He also started a long tradition of physicists leading the way in math, continued to this day in many areas of topology and geometry by String Theorists.
Not much other news. My parents got back from their European vacation in England and France. Sounds like they've got plenty of stories. Steph and I need to travel more. For the last 3 years, all of our vacation time has gone to visiting Oregon. Which is great, but there are other places to visit in this world. And now back to work...
Blogging the Simpsons will start up in about a month or so (maybe to coincide with the release of Season 10), but right now I'm fully back into Final Fantasy XII mode. I'm really looking forward to doing The Simpsons, my plan is just to sit down, watch an episode, then write whatever I feel about it. What will that take? 30-40 minutes a night? I bet I can get through 5+ a week. Let's see here, 10 seasons is about 220 episodes, so thats about 44 weeks worth of material. That's almost a whole year's worth of blogging! You'll just have to keep coming back. I'm really looking forward to some of the more obscure episodes that I don't quote as frequently. Will it be like watching them new (even though, most likely, I will have seen it several times), or just a refresher? We'll find out together! Also, FYI, The Simpsons Movie is coming at the end of the month.
The Fourth was last week. We went out to the Arboretum with Steph's new camera and some friends. It was a lot of fun, and the weather cooperated while we were there in the afternoon. On our way home, however, it started to rain and wasn't looking too good for fireworks weather. So we stayed home and Steph did her homework for the class she's taking at Tufts this summer. And I played Final Fantasy. So no cool fireworks pictures, but maybe next year.
But the real big news was on Thursday, The Retrofits were in town! I went out to see Jake, George, Brud, and Dusty. Also with were Andrew, and their photographer whose name I forget. Actually, they were running late, but managed to squeeze in all of 4 songs. Due to some sort of scheduling snafu, it was Punk Night, so the next 3 bands (and the audience) were of a different flavor of music. While it may not have been their best gig ever, afterwards we had a great time. You know partying like rock stars? I'm not even sure you need to be a rock star to actually party like that, just somewhere in the music business. After parallel parking the passenger van with trailer in the North End (!! - you have no idea how awesome that is, people walking by actually applauded us), did some dinner at Boston Beer Works. Not the greatest place, but the kitchen is open late and they serve beer. Unnamed individuals went off to have sex in the van, but couldn't find it. Others went home with some women who were at the show, despite needing to leave very early in the morning to get to a show in North Carolina (!! - 14 hour car trip for a show at 9:30pm). They took a cab back to my place a 3:30am. We pretty much stayed up all night hanging out back at our place. Steph woke up around 3 or 4, and stayed awake for an hour. They decided just to leave at 5am, so around 4:30 everyone was slowly moving around trying to find everything and go to the bathroom, take showers, use the computer (internet access has been spotty for them), and so on. But they managed to leave around 5am, and even made it to the next show in freaking North Carolina. It was really interesting to see the dynamics of a traveling band at work. Who does what, who's angry at who, who's taking responsibility, etc. I sure hope they make it. If you haven't bought their CD yet, iTunes and Amazon.com both have it.
Anyway, I was in no condition to do physics that friday, but I had a great time. I miss those guys. It's good to cut loose every so often. I don't think I could live like that for more than a couple days (apparently they've been keeping that up for more than 2 weeks, and still had 2 more to go), but I had a great time anyway.
Also, last Thursday, July 5th, was one of the greatest days in the history of science. In 1687, Issac Newton published his Principia. It is considered the birth of modern physics formulated in terms of mathematics. He also started a long tradition of physicists leading the way in math, continued to this day in many areas of topology and geometry by String Theorists.
Not much other news. My parents got back from their European vacation in England and France. Sounds like they've got plenty of stories. Steph and I need to travel more. For the last 3 years, all of our vacation time has gone to visiting Oregon. Which is great, but there are other places to visit in this world. And now back to work...
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Canto IL
Interesting news from the CDC. Here's the link for the survey, which is fascinating. I love statistics. I think if this whole physics thing doesn't work out, I'll dive into statistics for sports or population surveys and such. It's a lot of fun to see what's really going on in the world. The numbers don't lie.
My first week back, and I'm already behind. I've just been spending the last few days reading and trying to learn some stuff to talk about with The Advisor. I must impress him with all my vast knowledge... I spent the whole day today listening to music (Summer days + Allman Brothers = Awesome) and cleaning the house. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, bathroom, etc... I think I'll take the rest of the night off and watch The Big Lebowski or something else I can just be lazy with.
I've had an idea that I've been kicking around for a while and I submit it to the masses as to whether or not I should do it. Are you ready?
Blogging The Simpsons.
Basically, I would go back through and watch every episode and deliver some commentary and thoughts after each one. I've got seasons 1-9 so far, and 10 is coming out this August. So it would go at least that far. What do people think? Would that make for an interesting read?
My first week back, and I'm already behind. I've just been spending the last few days reading and trying to learn some stuff to talk about with The Advisor. I must impress him with all my vast knowledge... I spent the whole day today listening to music (Summer days + Allman Brothers = Awesome) and cleaning the house. Laundry, dishes, vacuuming, bathroom, etc... I think I'll take the rest of the night off and watch The Big Lebowski or something else I can just be lazy with.
I've had an idea that I've been kicking around for a while and I submit it to the masses as to whether or not I should do it. Are you ready?
Blogging The Simpsons.
Basically, I would go back through and watch every episode and deliver some commentary and thoughts after each one. I've got seasons 1-9 so far, and 10 is coming out this August. So it would go at least that far. What do people think? Would that make for an interesting read?
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Canto XLVIII
So I'm finally on my way home. I'm currently on the bus from Boulder to the airport, and I'll finish this on the flight home. But it won't get posted until tomorrow. It's like writing a letter to myself in the future! Hmm... What to write about? Not that much news either in my world or the world in general. I'm going out tomorrow to pick up the new White Stripes album (Icky Thump) and will probably listen to it at least twice before the end of the day. Maybe that's something to write about, a review. I'm excited either way, and we're going to see them when they're in town in July. I'm also trying to figure out what other CDs to get. I'm going to limit myself to less than 5. Unless something really good catches my eye. Steph's birthday is coming up this monday. I guess we'll go out for some nice food. She got a raise at work earlier this week, so congratulations to her!
And here's the rest of the story. First, a few things to complain about. Whatever number reason this is to hate the dorms: someone puked in our sink sometime Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I thought we had all grown past this. To the people who thought that a tiny baby would be a good idea to bring on an overnight flight: Go to Hell. You deserve it. I'll have to check my copy of the Inferno, but I'm pretty sure your going straight to Hell. The baby screamed, and I am not exaggerating, the entire flight. At full volume. In the seat directly behind me. By the end of the flight, the baby was coughing and horse after all that screaming. But continued to scream anyway. I don't blame the baby, but the parents who thought that it would shut up for the flight, they can go Hell. Where they will be forever tormented by all screaming unbaptized babies.
But I finally made it home. Lazy weekend followed. Went to the local shopping outlet for some groceries, picked up my CDs (I managed to talk Steph out of getting the Labyrinth soundtrack), and we rented Anchorman, which was pretty funny, Will Ferrell is always good for a laugh. Also, for Steph's birthday dinner we finally went out to this Greek restaurant near our house we've been meaning to try. Delicious and cheap! Next time someone visits, we'll have to go there. Hope you like lamb! (It's delicious!) She also got her birthday present, which is a Nikon D40 DSLR. And has been having fun playing with it since. She also finally submitted her first story for publication last night! She's going to keep working on it, and wants to submit it to 20 places in the next month. She's been working really hard lately and doing a bunch of things at home (like gardening, writing, photography, cleaning up, making dinners...), so I know she's planning on asking some of you to read over her story, so help her out a little bit.
Last night we had to do some BBQ because it was so nice out. The New England evenings in the summer really are quite nice. The days, being 85+ degrees and 70+ humidity, I could do without. But the nights are just great. So if you visit in the summer, we'll have to do BBQ. Also, I've moved into my new office. Steph came by and took some pictures with her new camera, but I think I'll wait a little bit and settle in before posting some pics. It's pretty sweet, though. I just need some bookshelf space for my books. Right now there are 6 stacks of physics & math books, all waist high, next to my desk. We're suppose to get a new bookcase in sometime soon.
Also, I think just about everyone saw this. I'm not saying anything. Just that I was an elder child.
And here's the rest of the story. First, a few things to complain about. Whatever number reason this is to hate the dorms: someone puked in our sink sometime Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I thought we had all grown past this. To the people who thought that a tiny baby would be a good idea to bring on an overnight flight: Go to Hell. You deserve it. I'll have to check my copy of the Inferno, but I'm pretty sure your going straight to Hell. The baby screamed, and I am not exaggerating, the entire flight. At full volume. In the seat directly behind me. By the end of the flight, the baby was coughing and horse after all that screaming. But continued to scream anyway. I don't blame the baby, but the parents who thought that it would shut up for the flight, they can go Hell. Where they will be forever tormented by all screaming unbaptized babies.
But I finally made it home. Lazy weekend followed. Went to the local shopping outlet for some groceries, picked up my CDs (I managed to talk Steph out of getting the Labyrinth soundtrack), and we rented Anchorman, which was pretty funny, Will Ferrell is always good for a laugh. Also, for Steph's birthday dinner we finally went out to this Greek restaurant near our house we've been meaning to try. Delicious and cheap! Next time someone visits, we'll have to go there. Hope you like lamb! (It's delicious!) She also got her birthday present, which is a Nikon D40 DSLR. And has been having fun playing with it since. She also finally submitted her first story for publication last night! She's going to keep working on it, and wants to submit it to 20 places in the next month. She's been working really hard lately and doing a bunch of things at home (like gardening, writing, photography, cleaning up, making dinners...), so I know she's planning on asking some of you to read over her story, so help her out a little bit.
Last night we had to do some BBQ because it was so nice out. The New England evenings in the summer really are quite nice. The days, being 85+ degrees and 70+ humidity, I could do without. But the nights are just great. So if you visit in the summer, we'll have to do BBQ. Also, I've moved into my new office. Steph came by and took some pictures with her new camera, but I think I'll wait a little bit and settle in before posting some pics. It's pretty sweet, though. I just need some bookshelf space for my books. Right now there are 6 stacks of physics & math books, all waist high, next to my desk. We're suppose to get a new bookcase in sometime soon.
Also, I think just about everyone saw this. I'm not saying anything. Just that I was an elder child.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Canto XLVII
So there's really not all that much new going on right now. I'm here at TASI getting my learn on. The lectures seem to be stepping up this week, and I've really been enjoying them. Although by the last afternoon lecture today, I could just feel my brain starting to tap out, I think I was asleep for maybe 10 minutes, and when I woke up, I was totally lost. I'll have to go through the notes tonight. But there was one rather great comment from Nima Arkani-Hamed. Much of his discussion revolves around the anthropic principle, which is basically saying that various constants of nature are "tuned" just right to support life. This has gained a lot of ground in the theoretical physics community (although remains highly controversial) due to two outstanding unsolved problems in physics right now: the Higgs mass (for those who keep up on such things, yes we still expect to find the Higgs at the LHC, this has to do with it's coupling to matter) and the Cosmological Constant/Dark Energy (the recently observed fact that our universe is just beginning to accelerate). Basically, the idea is that there is a huge multi-verse of many different universes with many different values of these various constants of nature, and we just happen to live in one of the universes that can support life. There are certain features and drawbacks to this, but before you dismiss it completely remember that the Earth you are sitting on is an anthropic argument. We didn't just happen to live on a planet that supports life, we could only live on a planet that supports life. Anyway, his lecture included a lot of examples of interesting "accidents" about out universe and situations that may seem to be "tuned". But one was particularly funny. The size of our moon is just such that it can block out our sun. In fact, it works to about one part in 10^3 or 10^4. That's an amazing amount of "tuning", even worse odds than the Blazers winning the Lottery! But he called this a case of mis-anthropic tuning, thinking about all the virgins who were sacrificed to "bring back the sun" or some other such nonsense. It got a good laugh. Well, they say it's not funny if you have to explain the joke, but maybe you learned something along the way.
I'm looking forward to being back in Boston. My parents are heading off across the pond tomorrow to visit my brother in London, and also visit Paris and some other parts of France. Two weeks of European vacation. I'm a little envious, Steph and I tried to see if we could work it in this year, but no luck. We'll make it there sometime. We've both been separately, but not together. Someday.
I'm looking forward to being back in Boston. My parents are heading off across the pond tomorrow to visit my brother in London, and also visit Paris and some other parts of France. Two weeks of European vacation. I'm a little envious, Steph and I tried to see if we could work it in this year, but no luck. We'll make it there sometime. We've both been separately, but not together. Someday.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Canto XLVI
So as you may be able to tell, I've updated my blog! Well, adjusted some of the colo(u)ring (for those of the British persuasion) and updated the links and such. Not too exciting, but it's 90-something degrees out, which makes being lazy very easy. Right now sitting in front of a fan with my laptop in front of me, watching the Sox ticker (Bonds homered, but Sox are still up in the 8th). My web-surfing is slowing down after 2 hours, so I decided to go through the email, then hit up the blog. And since I don't have much to post about, decided to make up my own news. Like fixing up this blog. Oh sure, I could do some research, but the fan keeps blowing the papers around, and if you think I'm moving away from that you're nuts. I saw Pirates III yesterday. Disappointing. If you only saw the first one, stay there. If you saw the second one, like I did, hoping that it would continue the antics of the original, well, you know how that turned out. Basically I was just hoping for some sort of closure for the series since I'd already sunk (if you'll forgive the pun) 5+ hours into the series. So now I'm down almost 8 hours to Jerry Bruckheimer, with very little closure. Lame.
Happy Father's Day everybody!
Happy Father's Day everybody!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Canto XLV
Well, I'm not one to usually do this, but this caught my eye while browsing the Oregonian earlier today. "Security setup records teen sexually abusing barn horse" really says it all, but I think the most telling line is "very concise, deliberate, well-thought-out plan." Concise?
Today, after a lovely morning lecture on open string field theory, we went out on a pub crawl in Boulder. Well, more of a Micro-Brewery crawl. We started just after lunch, and by the end were pretty much wasted. But good times all around. Sobering up now that I have a big bottle of water and took a shower. We hit up: Avery Brewing, Redstone Meadery (2nd time for me, if you recall), Boulder Brewing, and Twisted Pine Brewing. I've got to say though that nothing really blew my mind. I think the hoppy-revolution has hit Boulder pretty hard, and that's not really what I'm looking for in a beer. Even the porter at Avery was basically an extra-dark hoppy ale. I really enjoyed the light meads during the hot summer day. We walked about 7 or 8 miles today on sidewalks to get everywhere, and it was hot. The mead was the most refreshing. Weirdest beer of the day was the Chile Beer at Twisted Pine. It really did taste like there were little chiles in the beer. Long story short: if you like the hoppier-style ales, like IPAs and such, then this would have been for you. If you're like me, though, sometimes you just want a good Porter or Stout, and they can be so hard to find.
Anyway, I think tomorrow is going to be my day of rest & maybe get some work done in the afternoon. Right now, it's 10:30 at night, time to brush my teeth and go to bed. I've been posting so much this week because I'm bored without Stephanie. I miss home. And it's not just the nice bed, my own bathroom/shower, meals when I want them, the TV, or the sex. It's all of those things put together. Especially the last one. Maybe I am still drunk... Have a good night everybody!
Today, after a lovely morning lecture on open string field theory, we went out on a pub crawl in Boulder. Well, more of a Micro-Brewery crawl. We started just after lunch, and by the end were pretty much wasted. But good times all around. Sobering up now that I have a big bottle of water and took a shower. We hit up: Avery Brewing, Redstone Meadery (2nd time for me, if you recall), Boulder Brewing, and Twisted Pine Brewing. I've got to say though that nothing really blew my mind. I think the hoppy-revolution has hit Boulder pretty hard, and that's not really what I'm looking for in a beer. Even the porter at Avery was basically an extra-dark hoppy ale. I really enjoyed the light meads during the hot summer day. We walked about 7 or 8 miles today on sidewalks to get everywhere, and it was hot. The mead was the most refreshing. Weirdest beer of the day was the Chile Beer at Twisted Pine. It really did taste like there were little chiles in the beer. Long story short: if you like the hoppier-style ales, like IPAs and such, then this would have been for you. If you're like me, though, sometimes you just want a good Porter or Stout, and they can be so hard to find.
Anyway, I think tomorrow is going to be my day of rest & maybe get some work done in the afternoon. Right now, it's 10:30 at night, time to brush my teeth and go to bed. I've been posting so much this week because I'm bored without Stephanie. I miss home. And it's not just the nice bed, my own bathroom/shower, meals when I want them, the TV, or the sex. It's all of those things put together. Especially the last one. Maybe I am still drunk... Have a good night everybody!
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Canto XLIV
So here's just a quick scattering of stuff while I wait for the cafeteria line to die down a bit so I can get some crappy lunch. I read the Silmarillion. Not a good book. And the worst part was the ending with the Deus-Ex-Machina conclusion. Does anyone ever appreciate this? Roughly the idea of the book is that the good gods beat down the bad god every so often. Yee-freaking-haw. Went for a long hike during the afternoon talk. The speaker was terrible, so I don't really feel bad about missing it. Well, I do feel slightly bad since I was looking forward to the topic he was "discussing", but incoherent mumbling into the blackboard while writing illegibly doesn't really do much for me. He gave some references for what he was going to cover, which is basically an invitation to not take notes. The only other speaker of note so far is basically one of the hugest nerds I have ever seen in a physics setting. And keep in mind this is in a room with 60 theoretical physics graduate students and another half dozen professors. That's how nerdy he was. Normally after a lecture we spend the time talking about whatever interesting points the speaker made, but this time we basically spent it trying to gauge how much lunch money he's lost over the course of his life, how many wedgies and/or swirlies received, etc. 'Now see here gentlemen, I gave you the requisite sum, there's really no need for this...' I don't want to go into further details, for fear of having my young physics career over before it really began, but there were many riffs on this nerd-theme. Feel free to come up with some of your own.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Canto XLIII
Well, school-wise, there's not much to say. Actually, there was one really interesting set of lectures (the ones by David Kutasov) on constructing Supersymmetric Quantum Chromodynamics (SQCD for short - physicists love acronyms) from an intersecting brane scenario in string theory. But I've promised this to be a more personal blog to keep those not so near me up-to-date on the comings and goings of my life and not a geek-driven physics blog. Also I don't think I could keep that up. Anything really cool will probably pop into the New York Times Science section eventually.
For the weekend I met up with Steph again. She had been up visiting her Aunts in Fort Collins, but came down to pick me up. I guess they went to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory and took the tour, and had a great time. The mint room was something else! She picked me up, and we visited a Meadery here in Boulder before heading back up to Fort Collins to stay with her Aunt. (I have discovered that whenever I type Fort Collins, I first type 'Collings' then have to go back and fix it. -ing is just too common of a suffix.) We watched Happy Feet, the animated penguin film, that night. Very cute, but I think I liked March of the Penguins better. Penguins are just sooo cute, animation doesn't really make them much cuter. Almost makes me want to do B-physics... But not really.
The next day we went for a run in the morning and saw a coyote up close and personal. He saw us and ran the other direction, occasionally looking behind him to make sure we weren't following him. But I guarantee that if I had had to fight him off, it would have been a 500-lb Siberian Wolf that escaped from the local talk show. (She gets upset at loud noises. Loud? That's the secret word for the day!) Ahh, season 4, greatest of them all. Anyway, after that adventure, we hit up the local microbrews. Fort Collins is well known for two major breweries, New Belgium and Budweiser. But we took the breweries less traveled and hit up: Fort Collins brewery (damn it! did it again!), Odell Brewery and Coopersmith's Pub & Brewery. All of them were quite good, some of the lagers in particular were nice and tasty. We then had dinner with Steph's Aunts & their dogs. Very cute and funny dogs, but constantly working for something from the table. She flew out this morning and is back in Boston, while I have to ride out the next 2 weeks worth of lectures all by my lonesome. There look to be some good talks, though, so hopefully it goes quickly. Of course, I'll keep everyone apprised of the situation.
I think I would enjoy getting into tennis, if the sport weren't dominated by cyborgs. I was really rooting for Federer today, if only to give him the calendar Grand Slam chance. They always show the career record of Rafa vs. Federer, but it's really skewed since they've met 12 times, 7 of them have been on clay, Nadal's strength. I thought Hard Court was suppose to be the dominant (most common) surface in tennis? They're even (2-2) on hard court, and the only time they've met on Federer's dominant surface (grass) he's 1-0. It's kind of ridiculous how dominant Federer has been, though, and at least it shows that the overall tennis cyborg can be beaten by the clay-court cyborg.
For the weekend I met up with Steph again. She had been up visiting her Aunts in Fort Collins, but came down to pick me up. I guess they went to the Celestial Seasonings tea factory and took the tour, and had a great time. The mint room was something else! She picked me up, and we visited a Meadery here in Boulder before heading back up to Fort Collins to stay with her Aunt. (I have discovered that whenever I type Fort Collins, I first type 'Collings' then have to go back and fix it. -ing is just too common of a suffix.) We watched Happy Feet, the animated penguin film, that night. Very cute, but I think I liked March of the Penguins better. Penguins are just sooo cute, animation doesn't really make them much cuter. Almost makes me want to do B-physics... But not really.
The next day we went for a run in the morning and saw a coyote up close and personal. He saw us and ran the other direction, occasionally looking behind him to make sure we weren't following him. But I guarantee that if I had had to fight him off, it would have been a 500-lb Siberian Wolf that escaped from the local talk show. (She gets upset at loud noises. Loud? That's the secret word for the day!) Ahh, season 4, greatest of them all. Anyway, after that adventure, we hit up the local microbrews. Fort Collins is well known for two major breweries, New Belgium and Budweiser. But we took the breweries less traveled and hit up: Fort Collins brewery (damn it! did it again!), Odell Brewery and Coopersmith's Pub & Brewery. All of them were quite good, some of the lagers in particular were nice and tasty. We then had dinner with Steph's Aunts & their dogs. Very cute and funny dogs, but constantly working for something from the table. She flew out this morning and is back in Boston, while I have to ride out the next 2 weeks worth of lectures all by my lonesome. There look to be some good talks, though, so hopefully it goes quickly. Of course, I'll keep everyone apprised of the situation.
I think I would enjoy getting into tennis, if the sport weren't dominated by cyborgs. I was really rooting for Federer today, if only to give him the calendar Grand Slam chance. They always show the career record of Rafa vs. Federer, but it's really skewed since they've met 12 times, 7 of them have been on clay, Nadal's strength. I thought Hard Court was suppose to be the dominant (most common) surface in tennis? They're even (2-2) on hard court, and the only time they've met on Federer's dominant surface (grass) he's 1-0. It's kind of ridiculous how dominant Federer has been, though, and at least it shows that the overall tennis cyborg can be beaten by the clay-court cyborg.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Canto XLII
Well, the week certainly has gone by. First some updates about TASI, the theory summer school I'm now attending. The talks have been a lot of fun, and talking about them afterwards with the other students very rewarding. I'm learning bunches. Of course, the more I learn, the more I find that I don't know much. Frankly, I feel like the only reason to come to these schools is if you already know everything, and just want a place to show that off. Maybe this is just playing into my fears that I'm the dumb one. I'm not sure who said it, but the quote goes something like "If you look around the table and don't see the sucker, then you're it." I don't see any suckers here...
In other news, Steph arrived for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. She came in Saturday morning, we rented a car, and after a brief stop in Boulder, went straight up to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). The first day, we just drove around the main road up to the pass, and did the basic motor-tourism Americans love so much. Saw a bunch of elk, a coyote, two bighorn sheep (very briefly, they ran across the road and straight up into the hills) and some smaller things as well. The scenery is quite nice. We were staying in a cheap hotel in Estes Park, the local tourism town. The next day (Sunday) we drove to the far side of the park and worked our way back across. We also did some nice hikes, both long and short as we went along. Among the interesting things we saw was a coyote hunting some field mice (not bopping them on the head). It looked exactly like our dog when she would chase down balls and other things. The coyote would jump in with both paws out, and nip at it with his mouth. Of course, he was actually eating them, but you could see where our dog got that from. The other cool thing we saw was a moose. When Steph and I moved cross-country, we visited many parks and did many hikes in supposed moose-country at supposed moose-time, but never managed to find one. But now we finally did. They're very cool, a nice lope to their stride and very casual. Next time we need to find a big bull moose, as this one didn't have the requisite antlers for the full moose experience. Monday morning we also went out for some hikes and finished up sightseeing in the west part of the park that we hadn't got to the day before. Here's a picture of me at the nicest place we hiked to, Calypso Cascades, in the Southeast corner of the park.
And here's part 32 of Stephanie's continuing series of me throwing rocks from places. I don't know what it is about rocks, but I love to throw them. You can also notice the hair growth, two weeks after the shaving.
Monday was, of course, our 2nd anniversary. Like I said, we had gone hiking that morning, and then returned to Boulder to a lovely little B&B we found online. Very granola if you know what I mean. But we enjoyed it immensely. We went out to dinner at Sushi Zanmai, which was also wonderful, then walked around town & campus a little bit and had ice cream at Glacier. I'm only providing these links so that if you find yourself in Boulder, you can retrace our steps. Or enjoy them on your own. Sadly, that was only for one night, and now I'm back in the dorms while Steph visits some of her family that live up in Fort Collins. I already miss the bed. It was a pillow wonderland.
Anyway, that's about all. A whole bunch of us from the dorm went down to the local coffee shop to "get some work done" because they have wireless. And now, everyone is actually getting work done, while I surf the web and blog. It's very depressing. Maybe I just need to get motivated. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I'm not the dumb one...
In other news, Steph arrived for the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. She came in Saturday morning, we rented a car, and after a brief stop in Boulder, went straight up to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). The first day, we just drove around the main road up to the pass, and did the basic motor-tourism Americans love so much. Saw a bunch of elk, a coyote, two bighorn sheep (very briefly, they ran across the road and straight up into the hills) and some smaller things as well. The scenery is quite nice. We were staying in a cheap hotel in Estes Park, the local tourism town. The next day (Sunday) we drove to the far side of the park and worked our way back across. We also did some nice hikes, both long and short as we went along. Among the interesting things we saw was a coyote hunting some field mice (not bopping them on the head). It looked exactly like our dog when she would chase down balls and other things. The coyote would jump in with both paws out, and nip at it with his mouth. Of course, he was actually eating them, but you could see where our dog got that from. The other cool thing we saw was a moose. When Steph and I moved cross-country, we visited many parks and did many hikes in supposed moose-country at supposed moose-time, but never managed to find one. But now we finally did. They're very cool, a nice lope to their stride and very casual. Next time we need to find a big bull moose, as this one didn't have the requisite antlers for the full moose experience. Monday morning we also went out for some hikes and finished up sightseeing in the west part of the park that we hadn't got to the day before. Here's a picture of me at the nicest place we hiked to, Calypso Cascades, in the Southeast corner of the park.
And here's part 32 of Stephanie's continuing series of me throwing rocks from places. I don't know what it is about rocks, but I love to throw them. You can also notice the hair growth, two weeks after the shaving.
Monday was, of course, our 2nd anniversary. Like I said, we had gone hiking that morning, and then returned to Boulder to a lovely little B&B we found online. Very granola if you know what I mean. But we enjoyed it immensely. We went out to dinner at Sushi Zanmai, which was also wonderful, then walked around town & campus a little bit and had ice cream at Glacier. I'm only providing these links so that if you find yourself in Boulder, you can retrace our steps. Or enjoy them on your own. Sadly, that was only for one night, and now I'm back in the dorms while Steph visits some of her family that live up in Fort Collins. I already miss the bed. It was a pillow wonderland.
Anyway, that's about all. A whole bunch of us from the dorm went down to the local coffee shop to "get some work done" because they have wireless. And now, everyone is actually getting work done, while I surf the web and blog. It's very depressing. Maybe I just need to get motivated. I wonder if I'll ever feel like I'm not the dumb one...
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Canto XLI
Well, how about a quick hair update. It's already reached the comfy fuzz stage. The annoying, itchy & scratchy stubble only lasted a few days, so that was nice. I could really go without all the ZZ Top/Harley jokes. Although I did enjoy Joe's remark about stabbing hippies at Altamont. Damn hippies.
In other, non-hair-related news, I'm now in Colorado. After finishing up the TA junk (grading a final) & packing my office, the last week was pretty slow. By thursday afternoon, all the graduate students were just waiting for the long weekend. Because we're moving offices, there was a long weekend (5 days!), so just killing time until then. Today was the day to go back to work, unpack and settle into the new place. But not for me, and I got my Indian office mate to unpack for me and choose a desk. I'll settle in when I get back. This weekend, for Memorial Day, we had a BBQ with cricket. I've got to admit, cricket is kinda fun. But slow. However batting & bowling are fun. And the BBQ was tasty. Special thanks to Steph for making way too much food. Good times were had by all, and here's a link to some pictures. Please to enjoy!
So why am I so far away from home? There's a theoretical physics summer school (NOT a conference as I was emphatically told when I accidentally called them that in an email) called TASI held in Boulder, CO every year. So far the talks are pretty good. I've only fallen asleep in one of them (out of 8 in the first 2 days). Although I can already tell that 5 hours of lecture every weekday for 4 weeks straight is going to be way too much. Other down sides include that fact that I'm in some UC-Boulder dorm room. I HATE DORMS. I don't know how I lived through them for a whole year. God I hate them so much. The food is on a rigid schedule that would only be appreciated by the 70+ crowd (the dining hall closes at 6:30!), but not by a bunch of graduate students. And we're not allowed to drink beer outside, only inside our rooms with the doors closed. Lame. However, now that I'm further west, the Liquor Store has Black Butte Porter, and it's on sale! Delicious, except for the fact that I can only enjoy inside our smelly dorm room. There was a wine & cheese social the second night we were here. Well, there were some cheese cubes, a cake and other snack food. And 1 (one) box of Franzia Chardonnay. Not even a choice between red & white Franzia was made available. When that box ran out, someone went and got another one. It was quite the event. Anyway, today I got Intrilligated for the first time. A very pleasant experience. But it's going to be a long month of physics. Hopefully I learn a whole bunch and make this worthwhile. I guess it depends on how much I put into it. But with shitty wire spring mattresses and paper thin pillows, I'm not getting much sleep. I'm trying to "run" in the mornings, the altitude is going to make me amazing, but really it's more of a plodding motion. My legs were just two lead weights attached to my torso. But in a few weeks I'm going to be amazing. Amazing.
Okay, that's all for now. I'll try and keep you posted on how the talks go. Steph is going to be in town for our anniversary and we're going to go up to Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm hoping for some elk sightings, followed by a wolf sighting, followed by the wolf taking down a sickly/young/old elk.
In other, non-hair-related news, I'm now in Colorado. After finishing up the TA junk (grading a final) & packing my office, the last week was pretty slow. By thursday afternoon, all the graduate students were just waiting for the long weekend. Because we're moving offices, there was a long weekend (5 days!), so just killing time until then. Today was the day to go back to work, unpack and settle into the new place. But not for me, and I got my Indian office mate to unpack for me and choose a desk. I'll settle in when I get back. This weekend, for Memorial Day, we had a BBQ with cricket. I've got to admit, cricket is kinda fun. But slow. However batting & bowling are fun. And the BBQ was tasty. Special thanks to Steph for making way too much food. Good times were had by all, and here's a link to some pictures. Please to enjoy!
So why am I so far away from home? There's a theoretical physics summer school (NOT a conference as I was emphatically told when I accidentally called them that in an email) called TASI held in Boulder, CO every year. So far the talks are pretty good. I've only fallen asleep in one of them (out of 8 in the first 2 days). Although I can already tell that 5 hours of lecture every weekday for 4 weeks straight is going to be way too much. Other down sides include that fact that I'm in some UC-Boulder dorm room. I HATE DORMS. I don't know how I lived through them for a whole year. God I hate them so much. The food is on a rigid schedule that would only be appreciated by the 70+ crowd (the dining hall closes at 6:30!), but not by a bunch of graduate students. And we're not allowed to drink beer outside, only inside our rooms with the doors closed. Lame. However, now that I'm further west, the Liquor Store has Black Butte Porter, and it's on sale! Delicious, except for the fact that I can only enjoy inside our smelly dorm room. There was a wine & cheese social the second night we were here. Well, there were some cheese cubes, a cake and other snack food. And 1 (one) box of Franzia Chardonnay. Not even a choice between red & white Franzia was made available. When that box ran out, someone went and got another one. It was quite the event. Anyway, today I got Intrilligated for the first time. A very pleasant experience. But it's going to be a long month of physics. Hopefully I learn a whole bunch and make this worthwhile. I guess it depends on how much I put into it. But with shitty wire spring mattresses and paper thin pillows, I'm not getting much sleep. I'm trying to "run" in the mornings, the altitude is going to make me amazing, but really it's more of a plodding motion. My legs were just two lead weights attached to my torso. But in a few weeks I'm going to be amazing. Amazing.
Okay, that's all for now. I'll try and keep you posted on how the talks go. Steph is going to be in town for our anniversary and we're going to go up to Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm hoping for some elk sightings, followed by a wolf sighting, followed by the wolf taking down a sickly/young/old elk.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Canto XL
I think if this were a real blog, the title would be "In which I shave my head", only now I've ruined the punchline for everyone reading this. Well, you'll just have to scroll down to the bottom and read all about it. First, in other news.
Frisbee playoffs were last week, and we played pretty well. We made our way into the semis where we lost to Mech-E. But overall a very good season, and I had a great time. I already miss frisbee. So in a 16-team tourney in which we were seeded #2, we played 3 games. The first was won by forfeit (apparently, 11 am is too early for undergrads). The second, we won, but it was close. The person running the whole thing came over and basically called the game at the end of the point, when the score was 9-7. We 'won' 9-8. But it turns out Discus, the God of Frisbee, has been seeing both Irony & Justice on the side, and in our next game, the same thing happened to us. We were given 5 minutes to play when we were down 3, and only managed to score 2. Another 9-8 game, this time not in our favor. There's always next year.
And last week, school is finally over. Sure, I handed in the last few assignments late and I just barely scraped through it this term, but it's all over now. I'm calling it senioritis. This was probably my last year taking classes, doing homework and all that garbage. Today I have to help grade the final for the class I'm TAing, and then my school duties are done! It feels great. I've been doing classes and homework and junk for more than 20 years. Wow. And now it's over. I'll be enjoying a cigar this weekend to commemorate it.
Okay, the only other news is the hair. First, a retrospective. I last had my hair cut in October, to my usual short length. Steph and I were going to take pictures once a week and keep track of how the hair and beard grow as a function of time (it's monotonically increasing!), but didn't stick to that too well. And since we didn't label the pictures, I don't know when they were taken; I can only roughly guess their chronological order based on hair size. But here's one I can accurately pin point, and comes roughly 1 week after Thanksgiving. Always gracious in victory.
Well, that's a little more than 1 month after the trim & shave. Here's a current photo to let you know how big it had gotten.
Well, I had just combed it out to make it seem bigger, but still, that's a lot of hair in just 7 months. First up is the bleaching. That's right, I bleached my hair. Actually, I have to admit it was fun, and I might try that again.
I liked the surfer look. But I certainly couldn't just stop there! I wanted to go over the top, and was going to dye it bright purple/pink. This, I must say, was a bit of a failure, and the picture makes it seem much more pronounced than it was. But it still looks kinda cool.
And now for the shaving. Well, this was an event for everyone to enjoy, and everyone got in on the act. On a personal note, let me just say you shouldn't really trust a bunch of theorists with scissors.
Finally, here's the aftermath of the initial shearing. Yes, that's my desk in the background. The umbrella was used to catch all the hair. Also, I'm modeling a new Oregon t-shirt which is kinda weird. It's a Skull-and-Bones, only with a Duck, and says Oregon. It's funny. Man, the alumni association should be paying me for all the advertising I do out here. I love to wear my Oregon shirts out here.
But why stop there? You can see that the hair is slightly mottled from the bleach/dye job and it's very uneven. So sunday morning I shaved it for reals. All gone.
My head feels very cold all of the time now and it just doesn't feel right. I shake my head and my beautiful locks no longer bounce with it. So I've been wearing my old hat.
And that's how it is. What a tale, huh? Hope you enjoyed it!
Ed. Note: I'm going to try and figure out how to get the pictures rotated correctly later. Just tilt your head or screen to the proper angle for now.
Frisbee playoffs were last week, and we played pretty well. We made our way into the semis where we lost to Mech-E. But overall a very good season, and I had a great time. I already miss frisbee. So in a 16-team tourney in which we were seeded #2, we played 3 games. The first was won by forfeit (apparently, 11 am is too early for undergrads). The second, we won, but it was close. The person running the whole thing came over and basically called the game at the end of the point, when the score was 9-7. We 'won' 9-8. But it turns out Discus, the God of Frisbee, has been seeing both Irony & Justice on the side, and in our next game, the same thing happened to us. We were given 5 minutes to play when we were down 3, and only managed to score 2. Another 9-8 game, this time not in our favor. There's always next year.
And last week, school is finally over. Sure, I handed in the last few assignments late and I just barely scraped through it this term, but it's all over now. I'm calling it senioritis. This was probably my last year taking classes, doing homework and all that garbage. Today I have to help grade the final for the class I'm TAing, and then my school duties are done! It feels great. I've been doing classes and homework and junk for more than 20 years. Wow. And now it's over. I'll be enjoying a cigar this weekend to commemorate it.
Okay, the only other news is the hair. First, a retrospective. I last had my hair cut in October, to my usual short length. Steph and I were going to take pictures once a week and keep track of how the hair and beard grow as a function of time (it's monotonically increasing!), but didn't stick to that too well. And since we didn't label the pictures, I don't know when they were taken; I can only roughly guess their chronological order based on hair size. But here's one I can accurately pin point, and comes roughly 1 week after Thanksgiving. Always gracious in victory.
Well, that's a little more than 1 month after the trim & shave. Here's a current photo to let you know how big it had gotten.
Well, I had just combed it out to make it seem bigger, but still, that's a lot of hair in just 7 months. First up is the bleaching. That's right, I bleached my hair. Actually, I have to admit it was fun, and I might try that again.
I liked the surfer look. But I certainly couldn't just stop there! I wanted to go over the top, and was going to dye it bright purple/pink. This, I must say, was a bit of a failure, and the picture makes it seem much more pronounced than it was. But it still looks kinda cool.
And now for the shaving. Well, this was an event for everyone to enjoy, and everyone got in on the act. On a personal note, let me just say you shouldn't really trust a bunch of theorists with scissors.
Finally, here's the aftermath of the initial shearing. Yes, that's my desk in the background. The umbrella was used to catch all the hair. Also, I'm modeling a new Oregon t-shirt which is kinda weird. It's a Skull-and-Bones, only with a Duck, and says Oregon. It's funny. Man, the alumni association should be paying me for all the advertising I do out here. I love to wear my Oregon shirts out here.
But why stop there? You can see that the hair is slightly mottled from the bleach/dye job and it's very uneven. So sunday morning I shaved it for reals. All gone.
My head feels very cold all of the time now and it just doesn't feel right. I shake my head and my beautiful locks no longer bounce with it. So I've been wearing my old hat.
And that's how it is. What a tale, huh? Hope you enjoyed it!
Ed. Note: I'm going to try and figure out how to get the pictures rotated correctly later. Just tilt your head or screen to the proper angle for now.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Canto XXXIX
And yet another 2 weeks. Well, at least this time I'll have a little something to talk about.
About a month ago my high school class started up a reunion webpage (it's a private site so I'm not excluding you by not including the link, you're already excluded). I'm not sure how I feel about this. There are 3 competing thoughts in my head:
1) I keep track of the people I care about, so who the hell are these other people?
2) The creepy stalker part of me (no small piece as we all know) just looks at all the different people and their bios judging them.
3) The actual point of this whole thing is that I would guess there are about a dozen or more people I am genuinely fascinated by and would like to see again, and this seems like a good venue to get that started.
There were a lot of people in high school I knew and would consider friends, but then we graduated, we to different colleges and work and moved and all that stuff and I never really gave many of them another thought. I feel like Homer when he's looking for his soul-mate. He looks around the bar, and they all tell him exactly what kind of friend they are. Chum, compadre, associate, contemporary, well-wisher (in so much as I don't wish you any specific harm). Who are these people to me now? Now it all comes flooding back. Man, I hated high school.
Anyway, this brings me my friday night. There seem to be at least 3 Lincolnites from the class of '98 in the Boston area, including myself. And so I went out with one of them for some beers (along with Steph and another Lincolnite from '97). It's weird. I knew this guy for 4 years. We would talk occasionally. I guess this would fall under "associate", we interacted enough at school, but not much outside. But it was fun. It's amazing how much has gone on in everyone's lives. We also went to see a movie, "Hot Fuzz". I can highly recommend this movie, if you liked Shaun of the Dead. Basically it was a kinda funny British movie for the first 1:15 minutes. Then for the last half hour to 45 minutes, it got real funny. They just decided to go over the top, and it was awesome. I suppose Steph and I will get around to Spiderman 3 later this week or next.
And then saturday rolled around. Cinco de Mayo. My goal was to get a bunch of grading that I've had stack up the last few weeks finished up. But when I first got in, I got an email with the subject "batting cages?" It was a beautiful day out, and of course it's only saturday, so there's still plenty of time to get it done later... It was a lot of fun, but now I'm in pain. I didn't realize what a total body workout it would be. I think this should be the new hit exercise. Basically, this involved three of us waiting in line with a bunch of kids up to about 12 year olds for the slow and medium pitch cages. Then being taken to school by those very same little kids. There was one kid there who couldn't have been much older than 6 or 7 - the pitches were coming in at the height of his head - and he still hit better than us. Of course afterwards, we had to get some ice cream so we went to the Wendy's down the block and each got a Frostee. Nice. But now I am in pain. I knew my hands and shoulders would be sore, sure. But my abs really hurt! It actually hurts to laugh & cough. What's up with that? Full body workout.
And saturday night we went out to a party in Watertown. Lots of drinks, good food and karaoke. I even tried my hand at it, after 4 beers. These are the things you do when you drink. "I am very sorry for... attempting to sing." But good times all around.
Sunday was mostly spent lying in pain on the couch. We went out for some breakfast at a diner near our place. And frisbee in the evening (who schedules frisbee games for sunday at 6pm?). We won, and are 5-0 heading into the playoffs this weekend. Not bad, except we only had 1 sub, so I basically played the whole game. So that's now compounding the pain from batting practice. I think I need to get younger... High school was 9 years ago!!!
So now I need to get everything done that I didn't do over the weekend, plus the usual work stuff during the week. Sigh. Sounds like somebody has a case of the mondays.
About a month ago my high school class started up a reunion webpage (it's a private site so I'm not excluding you by not including the link, you're already excluded). I'm not sure how I feel about this. There are 3 competing thoughts in my head:
1) I keep track of the people I care about, so who the hell are these other people?
2) The creepy stalker part of me (no small piece as we all know) just looks at all the different people and their bios judging them.
3) The actual point of this whole thing is that I would guess there are about a dozen or more people I am genuinely fascinated by and would like to see again, and this seems like a good venue to get that started.
There were a lot of people in high school I knew and would consider friends, but then we graduated, we to different colleges and work and moved and all that stuff and I never really gave many of them another thought. I feel like Homer when he's looking for his soul-mate. He looks around the bar, and they all tell him exactly what kind of friend they are. Chum, compadre, associate, contemporary, well-wisher (in so much as I don't wish you any specific harm). Who are these people to me now? Now it all comes flooding back. Man, I hated high school.
Anyway, this brings me my friday night. There seem to be at least 3 Lincolnites from the class of '98 in the Boston area, including myself. And so I went out with one of them for some beers (along with Steph and another Lincolnite from '97). It's weird. I knew this guy for 4 years. We would talk occasionally. I guess this would fall under "associate", we interacted enough at school, but not much outside. But it was fun. It's amazing how much has gone on in everyone's lives. We also went to see a movie, "Hot Fuzz". I can highly recommend this movie, if you liked Shaun of the Dead. Basically it was a kinda funny British movie for the first 1:15 minutes. Then for the last half hour to 45 minutes, it got real funny. They just decided to go over the top, and it was awesome. I suppose Steph and I will get around to Spiderman 3 later this week or next.
And then saturday rolled around. Cinco de Mayo. My goal was to get a bunch of grading that I've had stack up the last few weeks finished up. But when I first got in, I got an email with the subject "batting cages?" It was a beautiful day out, and of course it's only saturday, so there's still plenty of time to get it done later... It was a lot of fun, but now I'm in pain. I didn't realize what a total body workout it would be. I think this should be the new hit exercise. Basically, this involved three of us waiting in line with a bunch of kids up to about 12 year olds for the slow and medium pitch cages. Then being taken to school by those very same little kids. There was one kid there who couldn't have been much older than 6 or 7 - the pitches were coming in at the height of his head - and he still hit better than us. Of course afterwards, we had to get some ice cream so we went to the Wendy's down the block and each got a Frostee. Nice. But now I am in pain. I knew my hands and shoulders would be sore, sure. But my abs really hurt! It actually hurts to laugh & cough. What's up with that? Full body workout.
And saturday night we went out to a party in Watertown. Lots of drinks, good food and karaoke. I even tried my hand at it, after 4 beers. These are the things you do when you drink. "I am very sorry for... attempting to sing." But good times all around.
Sunday was mostly spent lying in pain on the couch. We went out for some breakfast at a diner near our place. And frisbee in the evening (who schedules frisbee games for sunday at 6pm?). We won, and are 5-0 heading into the playoffs this weekend. Not bad, except we only had 1 sub, so I basically played the whole game. So that's now compounding the pain from batting practice. I think I need to get younger... High school was 9 years ago!!!
So now I need to get everything done that I didn't do over the weekend, plus the usual work stuff during the week. Sigh. Sounds like somebody has a case of the mondays.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Canto XXXVIII
Emergency blog post! Today, sometime between 8:10am and 6:45pm Kermit was removed from our neighbor's porch. When I was walking home this evening, she was cleaning up the front a little bit and Kermit was no where to be seen. He's really gone. I'll see him next winter.
Canto XXXVII
And another 2 weeks have gone by! Well, not much has been up, unless you want to hear about me struggling with homework. Joseph was in town, so you should ask him how it went. Surely he will tell you what good hosts Steph and I are. We hit some pubs, saw some sights and soaked in some Boston/Cambridge. Nice. And Steph's sister and husband were in town the following weekend for an Anime Con. Sadly, I missed out on this fun. Wait, sarcasm doesn't come through in writing all that well. I don't like anime, so I wasn't not unhappy to miss out on this weekend-consuming event. But again, good food was had by all (they've visited enough that they don't need the city tour). Not much other news. I've got 2 weeks left in my Harvard String Theory class, and after that it should considerably ease up my work schedule, as one of my two TA assignments also ends that week. If I can just make it through the next 2 weeks, I promise some kind of awesome post. Super awesome. Just you wait.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Canto XXXVI
Ugh, it's been more than 2 weeks. Well, some of it was busy, some of it wasn't. And I saw the flurry of activity on other's blogs, which just made me feel the worse for not keeping up with the Jones'. Of course we can't expect to keep up with Syd. Not promising to be a better blogger or anything, but I like to hear what's going on with other people, so I hold on to some delusion that others like to hear about me every once in a while.
My big news is that I was accepted to go to TASI this summer, which is a physics summer school. It should be a lot of fun. The topic is "Sting Universe", and seeing how I want to work on stings in our universe, this should fit in nicely. Also, this is a good opportunity to meet other graduate students and professors in the field. It's for four weeks from May 28th-June 22nd, and it's in Boulder, CO. For those trying to figure it out, yes I'll be out of state for our anniversary. But that's why she's coming out to visit! And I'll be back in time for her birthday, so it should be all good. I'm really looking forward to this.
There's only a few weeks left of my last semester as a real student. After this I'll be happily sliding into the role of surly graduate student alternating between extemes of laziness while mocking those still taking classes/exams and business trying to publish/write thesis. I really don't care about my classes anymore. The only thing pushing me along is that I want to finish on a high note.
Other interesting things. Kermit is still hanging. If you look on YouTube, you can find a video for Kermit covering Hurt by Johnny Cash covering NIN. I think my biggest guilty pleasure song may be "Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)" by Styx. I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books right now, getting ready for the movie and final book coming out this July. I want them to be fresh in my mind, but not so fresh that I'm sitting in the movie critisizing every little piece. There's going to a great talk this wednesday on MiniBooNE, which I am going miss due to my stupid string theory class. But I'm very excited for the results, and will hear all about them later today. I ran labs for all my little 8.022 students. Actually wasn't too bad, got in a rythem and soon it was like my mind was somewhere else while my body performed the monotonous tasks around me. And tonight I'm running a review session for these same students for their mid-term tomorrow. It's on Ampere's Law, circuits and some other EM crap. So I'm opening with 100,000 Fireflies by the Magnetic Fields. I feel it's appropriate. Joseph is going to be in town this weekend, looking forward to hearing all the stories from the Left Coast. I miss the Pacific... Our frisbee team won the first game of the year, 12-9 (it ended due to the Gathering Darkness). Huzzah! Hmmm, what else. Nope, that's all!
My big news is that I was accepted to go to TASI this summer, which is a physics summer school. It should be a lot of fun. The topic is "Sting Universe", and seeing how I want to work on stings in our universe, this should fit in nicely. Also, this is a good opportunity to meet other graduate students and professors in the field. It's for four weeks from May 28th-June 22nd, and it's in Boulder, CO. For those trying to figure it out, yes I'll be out of state for our anniversary. But that's why she's coming out to visit! And I'll be back in time for her birthday, so it should be all good. I'm really looking forward to this.
There's only a few weeks left of my last semester as a real student. After this I'll be happily sliding into the role of surly graduate student alternating between extemes of laziness while mocking those still taking classes/exams and business trying to publish/write thesis. I really don't care about my classes anymore. The only thing pushing me along is that I want to finish on a high note.
Other interesting things. Kermit is still hanging. If you look on YouTube, you can find a video for Kermit covering Hurt by Johnny Cash covering NIN. I think my biggest guilty pleasure song may be "Fooling Yourself (Angry Young Man)" by Styx. I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books right now, getting ready for the movie and final book coming out this July. I want them to be fresh in my mind, but not so fresh that I'm sitting in the movie critisizing every little piece. There's going to a great talk this wednesday on MiniBooNE, which I am going miss due to my stupid string theory class. But I'm very excited for the results, and will hear all about them later today. I ran labs for all my little 8.022 students. Actually wasn't too bad, got in a rythem and soon it was like my mind was somewhere else while my body performed the monotonous tasks around me. And tonight I'm running a review session for these same students for their mid-term tomorrow. It's on Ampere's Law, circuits and some other EM crap. So I'm opening with 100,000 Fireflies by the Magnetic Fields. I feel it's appropriate. Joseph is going to be in town this weekend, looking forward to hearing all the stories from the Left Coast. I miss the Pacific... Our frisbee team won the first game of the year, 12-9 (it ended due to the Gathering Darkness). Huzzah! Hmmm, what else. Nope, that's all!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Canto XXXV
I've just noticed that I've now made it out of Hell and into Purgatory. Only 66 more to go before I can finally start giving clever names to these posts! And my bracket is looking a little healthier. If the favorites continue their run tonight I'll be in great shape.
What a week. Been staying up late to finish up stuff, then sleeping in late and falling asleep in class. It's like I'm an undergrad again. But now Spring break is here! Yes, finally some time to work ahead! Maybe even do some "real" physics. There's plenty of stuff to do around the house, I don't think we've cleaned in 3 or 4 weeks and it's starting to show... Spring literally showed up this week, though. Both the usual Vernal Equinox, and we seem to be in a good thaw after last week's snow and everything just seems sunnier. It's up in the 50's and overcast. Spring is here, might as well get some spring cleaning done before the bugs start crawling in. The first spiders showed up earlier this week.
I plan on taking an easy weekend of cleaning and doing some errands on saturday, saturday night we're going to a concert, then being very lazy on sunday playing some video games and watching basketball. Time to kick back for a couple days. Next week should be fun for a change, just working on some stuff that I actually want to do.
What a week. Been staying up late to finish up stuff, then sleeping in late and falling asleep in class. It's like I'm an undergrad again. But now Spring break is here! Yes, finally some time to work ahead! Maybe even do some "real" physics. There's plenty of stuff to do around the house, I don't think we've cleaned in 3 or 4 weeks and it's starting to show... Spring literally showed up this week, though. Both the usual Vernal Equinox, and we seem to be in a good thaw after last week's snow and everything just seems sunnier. It's up in the 50's and overcast. Spring is here, might as well get some spring cleaning done before the bugs start crawling in. The first spiders showed up earlier this week.
I plan on taking an easy weekend of cleaning and doing some errands on saturday, saturday night we're going to a concert, then being very lazy on sunday playing some video games and watching basketball. Time to kick back for a couple days. Next week should be fun for a change, just working on some stuff that I actually want to do.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Canto XXXIV
Well my bracket is in shambles. Not that I know much about college baskteball, but I should be doing better than people who pick based on mascots. Not good. My big sleeper bid was Louisville to the Final Four. With them in the second round, I think it's just about over for me. Oregon is getting pretty lucky this year in the tourneys, they seem to constantly be facing upsets and not the higher seeds. Hopefully they make the Elite Eight and shock the world by upsetting Florida. That would be awesome. So long as their 3 pointers keep falling, that's about all they need.
It's been crazy busy this last week and weekend. On friday I watched the Ducks game, but over the weekend I watched a total of 6 minutes of basketball. Saturday night returning late from the Institute, I watched the final 2 minutes of UCLA over Indiana, and Sunday watched the final few minutes of the blowouts of Kansas over Kentucky and USC over Texas. But next week is Spring Break, so I should be able to catch all of the Sweet-16 action. That's when it gets really good, right? No big Cinderellas this year, but the Ducks are still in it to win it.
Last week we had a bunch of prospective graduate students visit to see how cool it is to be at MIT. But we seem to be a pretty cool lot around here. The problem is that they visited as things are starting to get really busy. I've just got to make it through this week and everything will be alright. Spring break here I come!
It's been crazy busy this last week and weekend. On friday I watched the Ducks game, but over the weekend I watched a total of 6 minutes of basketball. Saturday night returning late from the Institute, I watched the final 2 minutes of UCLA over Indiana, and Sunday watched the final few minutes of the blowouts of Kansas over Kentucky and USC over Texas. But next week is Spring Break, so I should be able to catch all of the Sweet-16 action. That's when it gets really good, right? No big Cinderellas this year, but the Ducks are still in it to win it.
Last week we had a bunch of prospective graduate students visit to see how cool it is to be at MIT. But we seem to be a pretty cool lot around here. The problem is that they visited as things are starting to get really busy. I've just got to make it through this week and everything will be alright. Spring break here I come!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Canto XXXIII
I just had to write about my movie-watching weekend. On saturday, went out with a bunch of guys to see 300. It was about what I expected. If you want to see a movie with lots of impalings, beheadings and limb-chopping, then this is your film. There was also a crab-man. I'm not sure where he fits in. The element of the fantastical and over-blown in this film I felt detracted from the "story". I love this story, in fact I re-read my Herodotus earlier in the week (no complaints about him being the 'father of lies' - still a valuable source for that era) about the Battle of Thermopylae. I won't go into a blow-by-blow (no matter how appropriate) into the various innacuracies. And the many different movies which were ripped off in different scenes. The weirdest was the E.T. one - if you see the movie, you'll know which scene. My last gripe is that they seriously undercut the Athenian contribution to the Persian Wars. I mean, this was an important battle, as was Plataea, but as far as I know every historian agrees (both ancient and modern) the deciding battle was Salamis. Does this even get a mention? And when the Spartans first show up at the pass, the Persian fleet is wrecked by storm. This is partly true (a significant fraction of the Persian fleet was lost due to a storm), but in actuality the fleet was held up by a much smaller Athenian contingent at the Straits of Artemisium, in a very similar fashion to that seen in Thermopylae only on the sea. We saw it in the new digital projection, and I must say the picture quality was amazing. You could really see every ab and pec in it's full glory, as the Spartans would have wanted.
And on sunday night Steph and I went to see The Good Shepherd. About the only thing everyone can say about this movie is that it was long. Not that bad, but not that good either. I guess I was just expecting more. Next weekend we're seeing The Illusionist, which I heard was quite good.
Last night Steph was talking dirty to me. I'm finishing up my dinner and thinking about doing some work when she says 'You want to watch Babylon 5?'. Very Nice.
And on sunday night Steph and I went to see The Good Shepherd. About the only thing everyone can say about this movie is that it was long. Not that bad, but not that good either. I guess I was just expecting more. Next weekend we're seeing The Illusionist, which I heard was quite good.
Last night Steph was talking dirty to me. I'm finishing up my dinner and thinking about doing some work when she says 'You want to watch Babylon 5?'. Very Nice.
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