| Good Lord he's alive! |
[03 Jun 2009|11:05am] |
Yeah, still around. I haven't really even done many stupid things that would cause me to be otherwise lately. That may change, however, if I go on the rafting trip this weekend. Somehow, a friend of mine managed to score places on a raft for $20 each. Absolutely ridiculous.
My girlfriend has been gone in Italy now for 2 1/2 weeks. Today, fortunately, marks the halfway point of her trip. I am, of course, insanely jealous that while I'm here, desperately searching for some form of reasonable employment, she's off in Pompeii (at this very moment, most likely). I've never been to Italy, which is rather unfortunate for an ancient history buff such as myself. She's decided that, at some point in the nebulous future, she needs to kidnap me and take me there. I'm not going to complain.
Yes, I am desperately seeking employment. I got an email from one of my professors last week saying that, despite what he had been assuring me all spring semester, he did not, in fact, have funding for me for the summer . . . I wish he'd told me a bit earlier. I might have been able to secure some other funding had I had the chance. But, now this gives me more time to work on finishing my thesis (I sent off a rough draft to my advisor on Friday, hopefully I will hear from him about it soon). On the plus side, I am a well qualified candidate, and I have already gotten responses (acknowledgments, really) from several employers. Here's hoping.
Yesterday was a fantastic day. I applied to two places in the morning before 10AM. Right when I finished with that, the girl called from Italy. Talked to her for half an hour, and who knows how much that cost . . . Worth every penny, either way. After lunch, I went for an hour long (muddy) trail run. It's been raining here for three days straight, which is an extremely rare occurrence here in Boulder, and I got back covered head to toe in mud. And, right after that, I went out for a few beers with one of my professors from Colby, who is out here for a conference. That was fun.
And later, settling down with some friends at the Walnut, a friend of mine invited me on a rafting trip for the weekend. He somehow managed to score $20 tickets for us. Not sure how that happened, but it sounds like a good time.
We shall see . . .
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| Holy Snow Day, Batman! |
[27 Mar 2009|09:34am] |
That's right. I woke up yesterday to 6 inches of snow on the ground. This was at 7:30. By 9:00, it was closer to 8". Having shoveled my deck and the sidewalk (for the first of what would be three times) I decided to walk down to my favorite coffee shop and settle down with some work for a while.
People in Boulder have no idea how to drive in the snow. On a (normally) 10 minute walk, I stopped to push 5 cars out of ridiculous positions. That's in addition to the two I just guided out. People here don't understand snow. One guy in a subaru got really annoyed that a car in front of him could not make it up the hill, decided to swerve into the oncoming traffic lane to get around them, slid out of control and ended up stuck on the far side of the road, facing the wrong direction up a hill.
All I had to do to get him out was convince him to not try to go straight up the hill, but rather turn his wheels so his force was directed parallel to the hill rather than straight up it. Basic stuff, people.
In any case, long story short, this morning, the snow stopped after dumping 16 inches on my deck. And I've been in a great mood throughout =)
I also went on a trail run yesterday. My other blog has that info . . .
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| And the word of the day is "dissertating" |
[15 Mar 2009|10:21am] |
Actually, thesizing might be a better word. However, dissertating has a much better ring to it. Really, it's a rather amigulous decision.
Made up words aside, as usual, I have not posted in ages. I haven't even posted on my running blog in a very long time (I plan to remedy that soon). I apologize, but I have had little enough time to run, let alone write about it. As that suggests, I have been exceedingly busy lately. However, this post is simply about the weekend. Seized and throttled, and I still have a full day left.
It started, really, on Thursday night. My girlfriend and I (we're closing in on three months, this Thursday) met on Pearl street for dinner. After much deliberation, we walked into the first restaurant we saw. Happened to be a pizza place. Now, this presents problems for the two of us, as she's a vegetarian, and I have a milk allergy. We quickly solved that by ordering a Mediterranean Pizza, half with no mozzarella, but with feta and chicken, half no chicken, but with mozzarella and feta. And they actually got it right first try! We followed that up with a viewing of "Saved" (still hilarious) and an early bedtime.
Rolled out of bed bright and early at 11 . . . I can't remember the last time I slept that late (through the class I TA no less). Friday was scattered: I read a dissertation, ran, went to the Walnut, went home, went out for sushi at 10PM, drove over and picked up the girl, went home, and couldn't sleep until 3AM. She had to get up at 8:30. Blegh.
Yesterday was amazing. I finally woke up for good at 10 to a bright, sunny, warm day, as compared to the snow and cold forecast for the day. Went to the coffee shop, reread said dissertation and worked on a HW. I went to REI to look at climbing shoes, and came home for a run (which was amazing). Since it was the first truly nice day of the year (no wind to speak of, about 65) I dusted off the grill and grilled up a mess of meat (buffalo sausage, buffalo burgers with wooster sauce and garlic, and thai peanut chicken) ate as much as I could, and settled down to read until I went out for Karaoke for my friend and her twin brother's birthday.
All in all, a fantastic weekend. Now it's time to buckle down and take 50-odd second derivatives.
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| Wait, what? |
[06 Nov 2008|09:20pm] |
It was a bit weird to wake up on Wednesday. I'm not used to waking up after a presidential election and, far from being depressed, be elated!
I went out with my friend Jessica on election night. It was quite fun. We headed down to the Walnut for the traditional pint night, slightly modified. The normal crew (my friends Phil and Luke, the token republicans at the bar, and my friends Suzanne and Jessie as well). There was much cheering and going on during the speech, which was rather annoying. And I was rather disappointed in most of the democrats at the bar. Phil and Luke were very gracious in defeat, but I cannot say that the bar was gracious in victory, and once the bar started going, Phil came right back at them. Seriously, don't mess with the man, he was already Boulder's youngest candidate for city council. That said, I was still grinning like an idiot an hour later when we left the bar, and Jessica and I opted to go to the local Cowboy bar. Hilarity ensued, and I woke up regretting it a bit on Wednesday morning.
All of that is kind of beside the point of this post (well, most of it) however. The idea on this post was to direct anybody who may be reading to my other blog. I am much more faithful in updating that, these days, since I don't have all that much time to actually do social type stuff around my running and school. I will do my best to update this as well, but I think you might have more luck on the other one.
Give it a shot. You can see some of the craziness I get up to out here. Also, I post pretty pictures of CO on that one far more often.
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| 1870, 1920, 1924 |
[04 Nov 2008|08:53am] |
Blacks, women, Native Americans.
I know this is probably unnecessary with the readers of this particular group, but if you haven't yet, go out and vote. Your employers have to let you. I'm sure your professors will forgive you if you skip class for this.
Go out and exercise your right as an American Citizen.
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| Autumn |
[24 Oct 2008|11:42am] |
It came to my attention today that I have been sadly neglecting this blog for some time. I have been somewhat more faithful in updating my other blog, but as that is fairly specific content, on the whole, I thought I should add a post or eight here too.
Well, maybe not eight, but at least one.
Autumn has struck full force here in Boulder. Yesterday it didn't get past 25 degrees until after 10 in the morning. My morning bike to school once again produced an ice cream headache, something that usually only happens in the winter months, but which I oddly look forward to. And with winter comes skiing. I finally purchased all my Telemark gear, including skis which I got for free from my Dentist. How's that for a little luck? I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to getting some good skiing days in this winter. Who knows, maybe I'll even break out the old XC skis and get a little of that in too.
School has been as expected. Between my three classes and my research, school by itself would be more than enough to handle. But as all the readers of this blog know, that's simply not enough for me. I try to maintain a decent life outside of school. Turns out that playing two different instruments regularly takes a ton of time. Running adds a little more on top of that. And having some semblance of a social life shoots everything straight to hell =)
But hell is always interesting.
Last night, I strapped on my biking gloves and headed out to a wings joint to meet my friend Mark, in from Boston for the weekend. It was a rowdy night of good fun, friends, and food. My running friend Jessica was there, and as it turns out has recently broken up with her boyfriend. Did I mention that Fauna and I split up? Well, we did. So there are plans to go out, get a few drinks, and comiserate about our respective failed relationships. And, being us, we'll probably go for a run first, just to keep things at a normal level.
Life rolls on. Always interesting, and never perfect, but I wouldn't trade it.
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| Avast, me earties |
[19 Sep 2008|01:38pm] |
It do be Talk like a pirate day. T'do proper honor to this day, I propose a wager (or a competition) wi' ye!
We all know the shanty for haulin the mains'l, or weighin anchor:
"What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
what shall we do with the drunken sailor?
what shall we do with the drunken sailor?
Early in the mornin
Wey-hey an up she rises
Wey-hey an up she rises
Wey-hey an up she rises
Early in the mornin"
What be the best next verse?
Some examples:
Shave 'is belly with a rusty razor
Put im in bed with the cap'n's daughter
'Round with the rum and scotch and whiskey
etc
So: I'll be splitten me buried treasure with the scurvy dog what comes up with the best verse. Savvy?
(As soon as i find it, that be)
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| Horse trails are slippery |
[15 Sep 2008|10:38am] |
For exactly the disgusting reason you might think.
I raced on one on Saturday. My legs felt like crap, but I did exactly what I wanted to, which is the important part. I opted, at the starting line, not to race, rather to just treat it as another training run, albeit a hard one. The race was 4.5 miles long, with almost 1000 feet of total elevation gain. Ridiculously hard, for those of you who might be wondering. They use it as a qualifying time for a 10k in the spring, if that gives you any indication.
Any way, I ran. I came in at about 43 minutes, and was not even out of breath. I count it as a good omen for my half marathon in Aspen in a couple weeks.
Yesterday, Ms Barb dropped y for the night. I finally met her gf. It's about time, really. We hung out, went to dinner, had a few beers, and finished off the night by watching Eddie Izzard and other hilarious youtube clips. All in all, an enjoyable evening.
And now, having gotten up way too early after too late a night, I am somewhat prepared to start my week again. Naturally enough, after not assigning homework for the first three weeks of classes, all my classes assigned homework to be turned in the same day (that being Thursday).
Convenient as ever. I'd better get to finishing that off or something . . .
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| Ahh, fall. |
[24 Aug 2008|08:46pm] |
Wait, no, it's actually not fall, but it's close enough, because classes are starting once again.
I can't say I'm a huge fan of that idea. But, as I don't think I've said it yet here, I'll give "the plan." I'm going to finish my masters at CU. At the moment, it looks as though, if I write a thesis, I should be done next spring. Of course, I have to work my butt off in order to do so. But hopefully I'm up for that again. The fall semester does not look all that bad. At the moment, I have three courses, but no TA position this far. Rather, I will be doing research for the semester. Ideally, this will lead to said thesis, and I can finish doing mostly thesis work in the Spring. And, as an added bonus, I have classes on Tuesday and Thursday only. Here's to grad school.
After that, it's still up in the air. This fall, part of my job (unofficially of course) will be to figure that out. There is always the possibility of yet more school. There are some sustainable design programs out there that could be interesting. But what I"m really hoping for is a similarly themed job to what I had all the way through college, where I worked for the scene shop. Basically, I got a design, and was told to implement it. They didn't always suggest how, but I got the jobs that people couldn't figure out, and I figured them out.
If I can find a job where I get to do that, I"ll be happy. Money is not so important, but the job itself is.
In any case, that's a thought for another day. Right now, I'm in kind of a melancholy mood, watching the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games. At the same time, I'll be happy to have my own schedule back. The fact that China is 14 hours different from here in Colorado has messed somewhat with my sleep schedule, and I only have one more day to get it back before I have to buckle down and get to work again.
Here's to two semesters left!
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| Home again |
[09 Aug 2008|10:27am] |
I am back in Boulder once again. It was a long trip out to CT, to say the least. I'm sorry I didn't get to see anybody, but it was a working trip, not so much a playing one.
Three hours into our trip, the "Check Engine" light came on in Fauna's little Hyundai Accent, in the middle of Kansas. Tom at the welcome center sent us to "See Jim, and say Tom sent you" at the auto parts store. Jim had never seen a Hyundai before, and couldn't figure out where the computer port was (turned out to be very easy to find, too easy, in fact). Jim sent us to talk to Larry or Matt at the Goodyear, and they figured out that it was a clogged fuel filter. Amazingly, the Carquest in Goodland, Kansas, had the correct part, somehow, so that was taken care of.
About 7 hours later, in Missouri this time, the light came on again. Add to that the fact that Fauna's headlights are messed up (they flick randomly between high and low beams. The truckers were not happy with that), and we opted to stay at a hotel rather than continue to St Louis.
The rest of the trip went smoothly. The lack of AC (did I mention that part?) that was such a problem the first two days was not such a problem as we proceeded farther and farther north. New Haven is an interesting city. It's kind of a mix between Oxford and any sketch US small town. It's got some really pretty buildings, unfortunately mixed right in with not-so-pretty buildings.
And now I'm home in Boulder, realizing that I need to do one whole hell of a lot before school starts in two weeks. Dayamn.
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| Home briefly |
[07 Jul 2008|05:24pm] |
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I will be back in the D-town for a few days this week. Late notice, I know. My grandfather passed away, and his funeral is this Friday, so I will be back home Thursday night, staying Friday and Saturday, and gone again on Sunday. Short trip, and busy, but let me know if any of you Duluth types can get together.
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| New Computer!! |
[10 Apr 2008|08:43pm] |
That's right, I finally got a new computer, after my old one was crapping out on me all the time. I got one of the plain old white macbooks. I decided that paying an extra $100 was probably not worth it just to get a different color (that color being black). Especially considering you can get a clear, colored case for your mac for somewhere around $50. I'm not probably going to do that, but considering that my roommate has precisely the same model computer, I might consider it.
So far, it's wonderful. I can take it to school with no problems. I partitioned the hard drive (into "The Precious" and "Sauron") to run both Mac OS X and Windows. I'll let you guess which portion is which. I can't decide which version of windows to run just yet. Any thoughts? I have access to both XP and Vista for free, so that's not an issue. The main reason I'm running windows at all is that I need it to run certain programs for EE.
Outside of that, things are ok. I got hit by a nasty cold this week, which has basically kept me out of commission all this week. I haven't run since Sunday, if that's any indication.
For those of you who don't know, for about a month now, I've been dating a girl here in Boulder. She's a Chem-E grad student, for a little while, named Fauna (yes, as in Flora and . . . her parents were hippies). There are plenty of good parts about this. However, the unfortunate part is yesterday morning she left for Europe for two months. Add to that her going to Yale this fall for a degree in Environmental Management, and we've got some things to sort out. However, at this, admittedly early, stage, I can't picture breaking up with her for any reason. We shall see.
To wrap things up, things at CU are going ok. I finally figured a way out of my Embedded Systems Class, which has been plaguing me this semester. I recalled that I work for the head of the department, so I just went to him, explained that the class was not useful for me and that, not having taken any of the 5 pre-recs for it, I was unable to complete it. He simply said "I'll sign whatever you need. Get yourself out of it." and that is that.
Wonderful.
Ok, hope all you MN types are braced for the weather tonight. We got it yesterday and this morning. And let me tell you: it's not going to be fun.
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| Minnesota |
[26 Mar 2008|12:59pm] |
So i will be coming to minnesota tomorrow. Unfortunately, it's not a fun reason to come. My grandmother died this morning. She decided almost three weeks ago that enough was enough, and she decided to stop eating. So after some 19 days without food and minimal fluids, her heart stopped this morning.
She was 85, and she lived for almost three weeks with no food . . . My grandmother has always been a tough old lady, but this is the first time it's been a bad thing.
In any case, I will be in Duluth as of 4:30 tomorrow, leaving again on Sunday morning. Lightning trip, and I'll probably be mostly taken up with family time, but if anybody is in town and might like to get together, given the chance, let me know.
Sorry for the short notice. I only scheduled the flight half an hour ago.
Outside of that, life is good :) I'll try to get an update in sometime.
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| The best tribute yet. |
[07 Mar 2008|09:34am] |
http://xkcd.com/393/
RIP Gary, thanks for all the good times, and the amazing rulebook fights.
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| Alive |
[06 Feb 2008|03:16pm] |
In case anybody was worried, I am, in fact, still alive and well. Just busier than I've been at any point since my freshman year JanPlan course. And that's saying something.
So what have I been up to lately. Mostly school, school, and a little more school. I am, somewhat foolishly, taking three courses as a grad student this semester. Course #1 is Circuits III, which is a 5 credit undergrad course. Not too bad really, I just polished off this week's homework in the past two hours or so. Course #2 is a control systems lab, following up my course last semester. Currently we're modeling a torsional disk system consisting of 3 disks, two connecting rods modeled as springs, an input torque, as well as three damping coefficients going with each disk. It's not too bad. Leads to three second order differential equations for the three angles of the disk system.
Course #3 is the tough one: embedded systems design. It's basically designing little mini computers for a single purpose. Since I don't have the five prerequisite courses, meaning I have not taken any of the five, it has been proving somewhat difficult so far, but I think I'm doing ok. Mostly, I think this class is going to be rather intense.
I opted, maybe foolishly, to sit in on a further course this semester: Renewable and Energy Efficient Electronics. This is the course I'm actually excited about, as Renewable energy is why I went into EE in the first place. So far, it's been pretty decent, but then, I've only been to two classes, as I missed the first two weeks worth.
Outside of class, I"m running between 30 and 60 miles a week, which takes up a fair amount of the rest of my time. And somehow, I'm finding a way to have a good social life in spite of everything else, regularly heading out on Tuesday and Friday nights, and generally Saturday. The running means that I cannot stay out as late as I might like most times, but that's a reality of my life.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a quote regarding IBM "They think big. Like "oh my god what were you thinking" big."
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| Enterprise |
[07 Jan 2008|07:03pm] |
I've been watching the monday night marathon of Enterprise on Sci Fi.
I noticed something rather interesting: a paradox if you will. In the intro, they show the Space Shuttle mock up (used only for in-atmo flight tests) named Enterprise being rolled out of the hanger. I find this interesting, since that mock up was named after the TOS Enterprise . . . Add to that, that the mock up enterprise is shown in Archer's cabin, and you have an interesting paradox.
Any way, it piqued my interest.
I will write more later. It's been a very long time since I've updated on this blog.
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| On coming home |
[29 Nov 2007|11:12am] |
As I may have mentioned before, I will be heading getting home to Minnesota on December 18th at around 1PM. So there are some questions to ask and some plans to be made.
My family has requested that I be in Duluth (or rather, Knife River) around the 20th or 21st, but I"d like to spend some time down in the Cities first. Any thoughts on what we should do while I"m in town?
Also, any possibility of a ride to D-town? I know there's a decent shuttle service (which my parents will luckily pay for) but I'd prefer not to use that unless necessary. I will, of course, pay for gas and all that fun stuff.
Looking forward to it. I haven't been in Duluth for Christmas in three years now. Who knows? Maybe I"ll even attend the Marshall holiday chapel . . . gasp
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| Thanksgiving |
[22 Nov 2007|02:33pm] |
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mood |
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 content |
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I posted on ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) brotherwilli earlier with what I was thankful for. However, i would also like to say I'm thankful for my sister's voice in my head this morning that told me, when my calf twinged, to drop out of the race. I'm yet more thankful that I listened.
I'm off to my friend Jessie's for thanksgiving this afternoon. I haven't seen her in almost exactly two months, and am quite looking forward to meeting her family. Suz an Marcus are also going to be there. It should be a wonderful afternoon.
Till I leave, I will probably be sitting hear, playing the guitar my brother in law lent to me (indefinitely). I wonder to myself why I didn't take up the guitar years ago. Not only am I picking it up quickly, and thoroughly enjoying myself while doing so, I'm also matching up chords on my mandolin, so that I've progressed further on that instrument in the past five days than I have in the past two years. Hopefully I'll be able to concentrate on my school work sometimes when it starts up again, but it's seeming unlikely.
Now if I can only come up with a decent song to go with my lyrics . . .
Hope everybody has a wonderful thanksgiving!
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| Quick Note |
[19 Nov 2007|10:32am] |
I will be arriving in Minneapolis on Frontier Airlines at about 1PM Tuesday, December 18th.
Thoughts?
I'll be in Duluth (well, knife river, actually) from whenever I make my way up there to sometime around the 26th or 27th, at which point I will be taking off with the fam for Boulder via Lincoln for New Years.
More later, it's been so eventful lately that I haven't bothered posting
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