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LiveGerbil
 |  Phlagm says...
You're looking at the latest 20 ramblings. |
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Sunday, November 26th, 2006
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I think I might come back here and make some extensive use of friend filters for various things. We shall see.
Here's what you may have missed. I started my second year of graduate school, broke up with Liz, went on a dating spree, met a girl from Tulsa named Suzy. She's in grad school to be a conservator. I somewhat befriended the most awesome Bill Kirchen thanks to appearing repeatedly at a bar he played at every night forever. Unfortunately he's moving away from Austin, and now I'll only be able to enjoy very occasional shows. I can't think of many other monumental occurrences, so I'll end this post here.
But do enjoy my other page: phdofu.livejournal.com until I get something substantial posted here.
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Saturday, September 3rd, 2005
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Granddad died today. I flew hurredly to New Mexico last weekend to see him because we knew it was coming. He had had cancer for over a decade and was supposed to be dead long ago, but he didn't let that slow him down. In fact, he used to wear me out when I was a little kid (though I am on the low side when it comes to energy). He had been great, though he'd gotten up with a grunt of pain ever since I could remember. Suddenly he started looking really pale and sickly a few weeks ago. They took him to the fucking VA crackpot who said he was just dehydrated. He _was_ dehydrated, but he also had a massive tumor that the VA never spotted which was crowding his lungs, liver, and stomach. They rehydrated him and sent him on his way. When it started happening again, they took him to the real doctor, and he informed my family of what was really going on, and got him set up with hospice care. I got my mom to buy me a plane ticket out there right away, because I knew it'd be my last chance to see him. I went at the best time, too. I got to spend time with him for one day where he didn't need oxygen. We sat outside most of that day, and the next he couldn't leave his oxygen tank for long. This weekend, the family that hadn't been able to come before all came to see him. Everyone managed to visit him one last time.
He told me that he thought of my cousin Jesse and me as his kids, because we lived with him. I also told him something that I was hoping he'd be around to see...that if I ever have a son, I plan to name him Oliver. That was Granddad's name. They say he talked to my Uncle Charlie and went to sleep and died. I was hoping it'd be as simple as that.
Now I want to write a few stories that he told me. Some I had forgotten, until he mentioned them this trip, and some aren't my stories, but since he won't be there to remind me anymore, I want someplace to store them.
I lived with him for my senior year of highschool, and during my breaks from my time at NMSU. I used to drive him nuts watching episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation. He said that as soon as I left, he was happy to not have crap on the television, and then my cousin moved in and started watching Beavis and Butthead, which drove Granddad so nuts, that he finally put a TV in the back bedroom.
Granddad never made it past the 5th grade. He used to get pulled out of school for farming, and so even when he was attending, he wasn't attending much. Consequently, he couldn't read terribly well, even though he was a smart guy. Well, at age 80, my aunt Doris began getting him Large print westerns, and he started reading. He read nearly every day if he had a book, and suddenly he was filled with encyclopedic knowledge of the happenings in the desert around Deming and Lordsburg.
He told me, as he was dispensing his coin collection, that he remembered all the old-timers in Deming having pieces of rope in their collections when he first moved here. It turns out that the reason was that Pancho Villa had invaded the US, and had "really tore Columbus up." That's the US town on the Mexican border about 30 miles south of Deming. Well when the word went out, a whole bunch of guys from Deming grabbed their guns and headed south to fight him. One guy had a little souped-up model A, and he beat the pack out there and got things set up to defend the town. Anyway, the Demingites killed Villa's men, and hung him. And afterward most of them cut little pieces off of the rope they used to hang Pancho Villa.
During one of the breaks, I was working at the movie theater. Since I closed it, I'd get home around 1 or 2 sometimes. Back then, Granddad had this big clumsy hound named Toby. I'm prone to leaving doors and things open, so one day Granddad awoke to find Toby gone and the gate wide open. So at 7 AM, he wakes my dead ass up and we go hunting all over for him. I helped him grab that stinking hound and load him into the car and take him home. Then the next day it happens again, and so Granddad woke me up bright and early, scolded me, and he said that I told him "Now Granddad, I know I closed that gate." We hunted Toby down and brought him home. The next night, he heard something, and looked out, and caught Toby rearing up and opening the gate himself. He told me that he felt so bad for waking me up all those times.
Granddad was afraid of heights, so when he came with a big crew to Dallas to visit my dad and me, we all loaded up to go to reunion tower. Since I had already seen the damned thing a hundred times, I let everyone else go, and I stayed back with Granddad. I walked all around that area with him, and he remembered me showing him where Kennedy was shot.
He fought, and was wounded seriously in Europe in WWII. He's told me a few stories about it. One that he reminded me of on this trip was his trip over there. The army had taken a cruise ship and ripped out all the fancy stuff and stacked bunks on top of eachother 4 high in every room, and was using that to transport him over to England. It was so fast that the destroyers couldn't convoy with them and protect them from German submarines. Anyway, they picked up a sub, and had to run into the submarine nets and park at iceland for a while while destroyers went and cleared the way.
He said he'd seen some really pretty countryside in England and France, but all the cities were rubble, and they'd just take bulldozers and clear the roads making great big mounds on either side, so that you couldn't see anything else. He said that he did visit one really pretty castle in france with a moat and a drawbridge with big chains, and they went down and saw the dungeon where there were holes. The tour guide lit a piece of paper on fire and dropped it into one hole and he said the whole thing was covered in skeletons.
We also started talking about how good the bread is in Europe. He said that he could hardly eat the army food, since it consisted of things like powdered eggs. One time he bought a loaf of bread from a little shop in France, and he said it was so good that he would eat meals of french bread instead of army rations any chance he got. When he got back to the US, he was excited to find French bread, but was really let down by it. "It wuddn't nothin' more than ol' white bread made to look like that French stuff," he said.
He got shot in Germany. He caught the last bullet of a machine gun spray that cut his friend in half. The bullet lodged near his spine, and it hurt him for the rest of his life. He spent six months in the hospital, and was very nearly sent to Japan after he had recovered. Luckily, they changed his orders and sent him home. While he was in the hospital, Patton visited, and said something like "There ain't nothing wrong with him" about Granddad. He _really_ hated Patton after that.
One time I took a trip to texas to visit my dad for thanksgiving in Midland, and go down and visit someone in San Antonio. On my way back, my alternator went out. I drove as far as I could, but it got dark and as soon as I had to start burning my lights, the battery didn't last long. I called granddad at 1 AM from Sierra Blanca. He drove out with Jesse to get me with a fresh battery. When I was driving back, he said I was weaving all over the road. I was totally exhausted, and I was freezing. we stopped at a rest stop, and the three of us napped in his van while he charged the battery and ran the heater. Once we got back, I had the alternator replaced, and withing minutes of driving off, it went out again. The guy who replaced it was a friend of Granddad's. When we took it back, he had the guy's assistant put in another alternator, and then he tried to bill us again. Grandad said, "Oh no you don't. We paid for a new alternator." I hopped in my car and left, and he followed me. That was the last we heard of that alternator.
When I was a little kid, I remembered him as a smoke, cranky guy who was in bed by 9. He worked forever at Hydrotest primarily as a welder. As soon as he retired, he became really happy and friendly. One day shortly thereafter, he decided to quit smoking. He didn't tell anyone, just when Mima went to check his carton, it was still mostly full. Ever since I heard that, I never believe anyone intends to quit smoking if they say that they "just want to finish the pack." It made me so mad a few years back when he went to visit my cousins in Lampasas, TX, and they got him started dipping. He took the time to beat the habit, and they gave him another one.
He used to always take us places. When we were all broke, we'd go fishing at Jones's Hole, a spot on the Rio Grande. He would also take us kids arrowhead hunting. He took me on a trip to Weiser, ID after he and my dad gutted a school bus and turned it into a camper. That's how poor people do it, and he was always poor. His house was always full of people. Mima and Granddad were so cool together, that everyone stopped by constantly. People were always bringing them produce that they had grown, or meals that they had made. My family is filled with some of the coolest and poorest people that there are in the world, and Granddad was at the top. I don't think I've ever even heard of anyone not liking him immediately.
He was so proud of his kids and grandchildren. Everyone is so likeable and bright. All of his brothers are really cool, but wound up with tons of duds in their offspring. I really wish that I could have gotten my Ph.D. while he was alive. It doesn't bother me much, though, because I never have anything to prove when I'm with them, and my family is always so proud of me for just being me.
Now Mima, who's so sweet and nice, is really worried. She's worried that she's too mcuh trouble because she has Parkinson's and tends to fall, so she can't be alone. She also has to have someone sleep with her and help her get up in the night. She asked if we were going to put her in a nursing home. Nobody ever thought of that for a second. There is some ordinance in Deming that you can put only one urn in with a grave. My uncle Jerry, who died when I was very little, is buried alone in Deming, and that bothered Mima and Granddad. My stepmother, Jan, is getting the city council to vote to allow both Granddad and Mima to be put in Jerry's Grave with him.
He wanted to be creamated, but he also wanted to be in one spot so that people could come and visit him if they wanted.
This was always a horrible and unimaginable event that I feared. Mima and Granddad have been like two great beacons for the family. I think we're all so close, only because it was so natural to gravitate to them whenever anyone had a vacation coming. Now I see how important it is to keep close ties to those around you. I want to get a car, and make sure to visit my cousins on occasion. I never do that, and that's exactly what will keep Granddad's family close. It's the least that I owe him.
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Saturday, July 23rd, 2005
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Chemistry CLEP is done. I studied 2/3 of the material, took the test and got a 66. I only needed a 50 for credit, so there ya go. Not bad for 2 weeks of study. I started history in earnest today, and I hope to take the test late next week. I'll see how feasable that is next week. After I CLEP history, I still have one other CLEP test to take, before I fulfill my requirements for graduation. I have to do that, otherwise I won't get to go to Austin and get my Ph.D. I'm not worried about it though.
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Sunday, September 26th, 2004
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Friday, September 24th, 2004
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I won again. I got 2nd on the first game and 1st on the second. I really should have won the first one, but that bastard got a burst of luck every time I tried to put him out of the game. That almost happened the second game too (with a different guy), but I managed to deafeat luck itself! Actually, I would try to put him out, he'd luck out, and then I'd play conservatively for a while. I basically did this over and over again until he just wanted to go home and started going all in on every hand regardless of what he had, so I waited until I had something decent and called him. Not the most glorious win, but I'll take the money. This is a pretty good semester; I'm spontaneously generating my own foldin' money.
I have about 83 things to do today, most of them have something to do with the GRE or bills, but there was something else too. Oh yeah, Bakhtiyar wanted me to work today. I guess I'll take the ten dollars and go do it :) I'm also supposed to get together with Carlos and do Physics GRE prep today. I really don't see much point in it, but what the hell.
Oh yeah, I need to get a FORTRAN compiler found and tested and see if I cant get something helpful done for Dr. Chiasson's daughter this weekend.
Tomorrow I go to a meteor museum in Fort Worth for a planetary geology lab. This wouldn't be bad except that I just looked at a billion meteors in the Field Museum in Chicago, and I'm pretty sure this will be more of the same. Oh well.
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Monday, September 13th, 2004
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Well, I'm alive again. After years of not spending significant amounts of my time on video games, I backslid for the World of Warcraft Stress test that ended last night. Thank the gods that this wont be coming out for a while. That game was one of the best I've ever played, aside from the massively multiplayer annoyances. But even those were minute compared to what I expected. Okay, I know nobody cares about my old videogaming vice rearing its ugly head, so I'll talk about other things. No wait, I won't. I didn't do anything last week except play that game. Well that's not entirely true, last last weekend Liz and I tried to inherit a bed from her mother, but when her grandfather's truck freaked out, we were thwarted. This last weekend, Alfonso and I took his truck and shuffled things around where they were supposed to go (including bringing the bed back here). It's hard to sleep without springs poking you in the face and digging into your back...oh wait, no it isn't. That's why I went back to sleep after I bathed this morning instead of properly finishing my Greek translation. It was okay, though. Those other guys were screwed, so we did about half the assignment. That's going to be another A. It was a hard A at the pace Natalija and I were going, but with these noobs (damn you world of warcraft!) it's going to be a much easier one.
In other news, I played poker on Thursday again, and came in 2nd and third, so I didn't lose any money. SO long as I always come out in the money, I'll be able to break even. The guys have their panties in a knot to make a bracelet and have a championship for it. I already wear a bracelet, so I'm not really keen on another one. Besides, it just sounds fruity. On Friday night, I went out and had a few beers at a tiny little bar down the street that is woefully underpopulated. They have darts, so we'll be going there often. I intended to drink 2 beers, and instead I drank like 7 because people kept filling my glass up from the pitchers that they kept buying. On saturday I was supposed to go to someone's 21st birthday party, but I wasn't in the mood to drink anymore, so I ditched that. I also had to meet with Dr. Chiasson's daughter to discuss her math science project. It's oing well, though I did have to dissuade her from spending any more time trying to make sense of Lie algebra. She's a highschool junior, and I told her that's a grad class at UTA, and even if she did manage to make sense of something, the judges might question whether or not she did her own project.
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Monday, August 30th, 2004
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The price of three day weekends is eternal monday morning classes. But I still prefer it this way. I forgot to translate my 1st sentence in Herodotus (I never can remember anything, so I write everything down and don't bother) and I translated it quickly during the break, and then we didn't even get to it. He also gave out some other assignment, but it wasn't really for my benefit--in fact, he largely skipped over making me jump through the hoops that he was putting the other three through during the class--so I'm not going to do it. I will do the whole translation for next time, though.
At some point, I need to do both my comlpex variables homework, and my advanced mechanics homework. Why didn't I do those this weekend? Oh yeah, massive computer problems. I got a spot on the World of Warcraft stress test (which is good, because I want to play the game, but intend to not pay monthly for a video game. I don't have much time to blow, so I'd be flushing my money. Besides, it's a huge waste of my energy...not that that stops me, but as it is, I can just play a game for a bit when I'm winding down)
The rest of my day: Herodotus: 1.5 hrs, 30 minute break, clinic 2 hours, 30 minute break, Planetary Geology 1.5 hrs.
I also had a conference with My professor, and he says that these two Greek classes finish out my major requirements. I now need only take a handful of freshman classes to be done.
Woops, gotta brush my teeth and run!
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Friday, August 27th, 2004
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Well, I wanted the Greek class to take place on Monday morning. That way I can keep my Friday's free. Chiasson also had the same idea. There was one girl who complained because she's taking an evening class here (though she's only auditing it) on Monday nights. She wanted it to take place on Friday morning. It was all set, the votes fro friday morning were counted, and the only one with their heart set on Friday was her. I had mine set on Monday morning, so I asked for that, and Dr. Chiasson threw the tiebreaking vote for Monday. The rude thing is that it really doesn't make much difference for me to do it on Monday or Friday, except that if I do it on Monday, I have an official 3 day weekend. That's okay, I like getting my way. I'm far too prone to letting myself be inconvenienced because it's no big deal for me, and everyone else gets all worked up. So I'm proud of myself.
The Greek class is good. Once again we got an older guy--consequently, this older guy said, "I don't think any of you know what it's like to try to teach physics to teenagers"...ha!--who talks incessantly. It's strange. I can tell he's somewhat engaging for the professor, on the other hand, he barfs out every thought that he has. I generally just ocmment on things that I think would be beneficial for the class, and think through the answers myself. I don't ask many questions, not if I think I can figure them out. I'm not afraid of looking dumb, but I don't see the point of asking something that can be looked up.
Oh, and last night was poker night. We played a $1 game for the first game, and I came in 2nd, so I made my dollar back. The next game we played a $5 game, and I came in second again, so I made my 5 back, plus 5. Essentially I got $1/hr for the night. Welcome to Guatemala, Jeremy. It was fun, though.
I also got a Cheapass Games expansion game in the mail yesterday: Save Dr. Lucky on Moonbase Copernicus. It's the moonbase they called 'unexplodable'.
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Monday, August 23rd, 2004
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So far here's my schedule:
I have two classes on monday/wednesday, two on tuesday/thursday, and one that meets friday to determine when it will really meet (not friday). This means that if all these classes make, I'll have a 3 day weekend constantly!
My first monday/wednesday class starts at 1:00. Yep, 1:00. It's a senior level classics class on Herodotus. This is a class that should be full of history majors, english majors, anthropology majors, and classicists. Instead, it contains 7 classicists. That'd be a bit annoying, except we've all had Greek, so Prof. Chiasson isn't really bothering to write the Greek words in Latin letters anymore, it's just Greek! We also took a look at the first sentence of Histories, and since we were all classicists, we could ponder the Greek rather than the translation. Chiasson said "Ah, I can give the high falutin' version of this class!"
My second M/W class is Planetary Geology, and starts at 5:30, followed immediately by a 1-hour lab. It's a sophomore-level class on paper, but it seemed more like Geology 1400 (or Geology 100 for those in all other systems that don't insert the number of credit hours in there). It has only 5 people in it, but I've arranged for another person to sign up. I think I might be able to drum up more interest. Perhaps if I can get just two or three people they'd bend the rules and let the class make. The lab was obscenely easy. It involved making a scale model of the solar system, which is essentially a unit conversion lesson. In fact, it was done so quickly, that I asked a few questions so that the professor and the grad student could feel like they really accomplished something, and so they could talk more. I'm a nice guy. Oh, and strangely enough, another physics major that I know very well (we skulked around in the tunnels under the school for hours and hours one night) happened to take that class.
This morning @ 11, I had my senior math class: Introduction to Complex Variables. Easy! The professor made sure everyone had Cal 3, and then told us that this class was basically an extension of that one, and so would be about on the same level. I normally don't mind challenging myself, but I'm taking the GRE's this semester, and need all the free time I can get to study for the physics subject GRE. This class would be fantastic, except that the infamous John is in there. This guy is a physics major, and we can never seem to escape him! He's an idiot, a loud-mouth, rambling, clingy, and has restraining orders against him by various girls on campus. Ugh.
I have Advanced Mechanics here in a minute, and then I'll do some homework for my Herodotus class. I have to read Iliad Books 1-3 and 22-24 paying special attention to narrative technique. This might sound like a tall order for the assignment on the first day of class, but I translated Books 1 and 24 from the Greek, so I'm brutally familiar with those two books. I've also read the Iliad in 3 other college classes, and bits of it in highschool, and read it on my own too, so this will just be a refresher.
Okay, enchiladas are eaten, journal is updated, now teeth need to be brushed so that I can go to class.
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Friday, August 20th, 2004
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Well folks, I'm back, and the trip was awesome. The whole damned place is bright green. Apparently it's the monsoon season to end all monsoon seasons down there. Liz and I got to enjoy one storm that had lots of wind, thunder, rain, and even a little hail thrown in for good measure. Damn I love New Mexico weather.
On the first day, we didn't do much.
The second night, we played a few cheapass games. One was an out-of-print game in which you play a shop owner who stocks and sells body parts to fad-mad scientists that are scrambling to copy Viktor Frankenstein. Then we played a game that can be played knowing next to no rules. It's called Light Speed, and you play cards out on a table as fast as you can. On each card is a spaceship with one or more lasers being fired. When someone has no more cards, people stop playing, and the fighting begins. It's a real mess, but I enjoyed it.
The third day, my cousin Keri and her kids left, and lacking anything important to do, Liz and I went and endured my mother for a little while. Aside from the completely fabricated stories (that I let Liz endure alone) she wasn't bad. My brother wasn't bad either. He's gotten somewhat less obnoxious in the past year.
On the fourth day, Dad, Liz, and I went to Las Cruces to tinker around in gift shops and to find fossils. The government locked up our old awesome fossil grounds, but we scouted around and found some more. At first it was slow going, and we found nearly as many golfballs in the canyons as fossils. I found one spiraly thing, and we gathered a few brachiopods, but nothing in any serious quantity. We drove around a bit more and stopped to just check one more place, and that was when we hit the motherload. We have a big variety of really spiffy fossils now. It was too bad it took us all day to find them, I really did not want to leave when the sun started setting.
On Friday, Mima, Granddad, Jan, Dad, Liz, and I loaded into Granddad's new toy (an ancient van with a whole bunch of work done to it to make it really comfortable) and drove all through the desert and through a bit of the Gila forest. We saw the staples: the mine, the City of Rocks, and the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The weather was perfect too. Liz was exhausted and missed some really pretty country on the way back, I've never seen the desert canyons so green. When we got back home, we made arrangements to play some more games, but then I got tied-up installing a hard drive in my Great Uncle Foy's computer. The case on the damned thing was really goofy, and they watched over me with really worried looks for the whole operation, so that I had to resist my natural urges to use a little force. When I finally got that all done, I went and played Light Speed and Agora with my brother, my girlfriend, and Phyllis (Foy's Daughter).
And finally, we got up today, got ready, and then came flying home.
There are other things to say about the trip, but I'm tired of typing. I'll post those tomorrow.
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Saturday, August 14th, 2004
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This morning we go over and stay with Liz's mom, so that she doesn't have to drive here to get us after work so that she can drop us off at the airport. It's going to be something like 5 days in Deming seeing the sights that southern NM has to offer--lots more than most people think! I know all you bastards just think NM is just Santa Fe with a side order of Taos, but you're wrong. I also need to finish the writeup for the thing I was doing over the summer. I could have finished enough to satisfy myself had I not run into the guy overseeing my research on the next to last day. "Why don't you go out and help Jaewon tomorrow morning?" he says. I did it and rather than helping Jaewon in his one-man job, I actually screwed him up. He was timing things very precisely (out of sheer boredom) but then when I showed up, everything got really random. On top of it all, I wasted a morning that I could have been finishing that paper. Now I need to incorporate results that I know nothing about!
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Wednesday, August 11th, 2004
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It was hot today. It's hot everyday here. I can't wait to visit New Mexico (did I mention that I was going to do that?). Liz and I are going Monday of next week for a few days right before class starts. We braved the heat so that I could get money for school. While I was up at Fermilab, apparently the school wanted confirmation that I was broke. Since they were the only people paying me, and they have my W2, you'd think that they'd know. So I got that turned in, and hopefully I'll have money before school starts.
I started working on my LJ stuff again today. I reinstalled windows on this machine, and the only place that the password to my uta account existed was on an ftp program that died in the process. So I can't resize my 'Gurgle' Image right now, but I'll get to it. Also the spacing in off, but I just wanted to get the thing looking vaguely like the new google search. Every time I think I'm done with it, they change their format. This will do for now. I also did some minor tinkering on my calendar page. I am torn, though. Should I eliminate the banner at the bottom of the page? I like it on the top because it's the banner over the top of the screen. It's parenthetical to have it at the bottom, but that's the only reason for it there. Perhaps I should put some instructions for how to use the page. There are lots of subtle things that just get missed: Each player is a week, there is a tentacle that pokes down on the top row to denotes the position of the first of the month, the more entries I make on a given day the bigger the alien is, there were only three rows on the original game so I added myself and Liz in there.... You get the idea. I also did a little work on the day page, but I haven't finished with it.
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...and it's nice and hot here. But it's still cooler than it should be. The flight was mostly uneventful. I lucked out and the person who should've been seated next to me never showed up. Naturally, I threw the armrest up and sprawled all over the place. I was completely exhausted. My last night there we played poker until about 2 AM, then we went swimming and debated physics topics until 5 AM. I only had a couple of beers, but everyone else got smashed. Devin was especially wasted. Once he gets drunk he starts making himself drinks that are half vodka. When he leaves the room I dump 90% of the stuff out and fill it with juice. That night it was freezing outside (like 59, which is freezing if you're half naked and dripping wet) but we decided to stand around in the gazebo and debate physics anyway. Devin passed out on the bench and when we woke him up two hours later he was shivering uncontrollably and was utterly incoherent. It was fun.
Liz and I did nothing all of today except retrieve my crabs from Alfo and find some stray kittens on our walk around campus. There were actually quite a few major changes while I was gone. One new building is up, the framework for another is there, and the streets are all one-way with parking meters on them. parking was a problem before, but those 25 ne spots should really fix things *cough*.
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Thursday, August 5th, 2004
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I have tonight and then tomorrow and I leave fermilab for the summer. It's been fun, especially here at the end (of all things). Last night, the other apartment of people came over and we played a game of mine that I'd not yet played, and it was actually fun. It's a game involving angry townspeople, Viktor Frankenstein, and running a shop that sells body parts. We didn't get to play it all the way through, but it was fun nonetheless. THe reason we didn't lay it all the way through was that we wanted to break into the pool again and swim. We went down there at midnight and swam until 2. Boy, that's really the way to do it. I hate having people I don't know swimming in the pool with me. Okay, I'm going to see if I can mostly knock out this writeup so I can stop having to do anything.
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Wednesday, August 4th, 2004
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The last poker night of the summer, and I came close to winning and lost just on pure bad luck. Dammit.
After playing, we got the bright idea to go get into the pool which had closed about 5 hours earlier. Luckily for us, there are about 100 doors all around it. I just went around trying them until one slid open. Now I'm sleepy.
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Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
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I just got a total bullshit email from the REU people. You know those emails that start out "Don't forget to do this thing that you know to do because we already told you about it already..." It's something I'd not heard of, nor has my inbox, but they mentioned so frequently in the email that they told me about it already, that I'm fairly certain that someone forgot to inform us and now that person is trying to cover her ass.
Well I guess I'll finish my writeup as best I can today, and then I'll get on this stupid thing. It's really not a big deal, but the way they informed me is annoying. Having people try to put something over on me just pisses me off. I remember in middle school making it a point to help all the less attractive or less popular girls carry stuff or open doors because they would either just ask, or else try to manage without help. On the other hand, the pretty and popular girls would try to charm and trick me into helping them. I wouldn't have minded helping, but once they pulled that crap, I had to snub them. In this case, I've pretty much got to do the thing either way, but I'd have been much less annoyed if the email began with, "I don't know if you know this or not, but you're expected to..."
In other news, I went to a lecture on neutrinos today, and am pretty sure that I want to study them in grad school. I really like experimental high-energy physics, but I don't like the stuff that most people are doing (like looking for Higgs or SUSY) it may just be that so many people are into those things that my natural inclination is to run away.
Oh crap, I've been screwing with LJ for the last hour, I need to finish this damned writeup!
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My girl is back home in Texas now, and I'll be going there on Saturday. We already bought tickets to go to NM for a week before classes too. We couldn't really afford it easily, but what the hell.
This weekend was rough. YOu know about Thursday, and then we had a little party (very little) at our place on friday. It mostly involved playing cards and drinking (not too much on my part), until 3 in the morning. Then, saturday rolled around, and the korean guy that my roommate is working for here invited us to a Korean BBQ. We went and hung out there from 3-8 on Saturday. IT was us three and a bunch of Korean guys. The food was great. Then the other apartment people wanted to hang out that night, but nobody knew anything that under 21 people could do, so we walked around and around mostly in the gay district, and finally found a bar that would let people under 21 inside. We drank there until 3 AM and then half the people went home (the under 21 people) and the rest of us walked around until I had finished sobering up(which I had started much earlier), and I drove us home. The best part about that night, though, is that my roommate Devin is really obnoxious, and argumentative. He'd complain that I'm going the wrong direction, when he had no idea where we were going, so I said "If you bitch one more time, you're driving." He did, and I pulled over on the highway, and he drove for the next 3 hours. The final thing he bitched about was my taking the road that we actually needed to be on, so I pulled over and got in the back. He immediately turned onto a wrong road. I smiled and let him drive in circles for all three hours. I loved it. I especially loved it when he nearly rear-ended a cop. Muhuhahahaha.
Then on Sunday my roommates went to see a baseball game. I wanted to have seen a game in retrospect, but I don't actually care to sit and see one. So I skipped it. Plus I'd spent too much time with people, so I was really looking forward to being a hermit. I did watch The Village with the people from the other apartment, though. I'm still feeling really zoned out and hermity, though.
I need to hide.
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Okay, well perhaps I've oversold it with that title, but it was a pretty great and action-packed Thursday. The day started with my panicked completion of the slides which I would use to give my talk. At 4, I gave my 10 minute lecture which gre to 30 minutes when everyone asked me a billion questions. Luckily, I was able to answer almost all of them perfectly. I must have impressed someone with that. This was at the Kuhn Barn, right across the street is the Fermilab user's center. They were having the big annual CDF BBQ, although there wasn't much BBQ. They did have things like spinach lasagna and poached salmon, so I had a hard time complaining. Oh, they also had free beer. And apparently there are the makings of about 1.5 bands within CDF (if not more) so we had live music. ANd they were good, and played mostly good tunes. After several beers and some ... eesh, I can't remember what it was that got me to get up and "dance." By dance I mean mostly jump around and headbang and mosh a bit. When they played Nirvana, I helped inspire everyone. No fewer than 10 people have complemented me on my hair and prowess with using it effectively in a headbanging display. Ah... It's nice to relive one's glory days, even if it leaves your neck utterly destroyed in the process.
Some people wanted to go home, but not all of us, so we dropped the others off (and Scott ralphed in the parking lot) and headed back to a bar next to Fermilab where all the people went after the BBQ stopped serving beer. WE got there a little after midnight and they were doing karaoke, but they were also closing up shop. So I talked to a couple of Fermilab people there and then we got invited to continue drinking back at one of the dorms, so we did that until 3 AM.
SO now I've met and talked to a ton of people. This BBQ should ahve happened much sooner! I know several people here, but mostly they're not really my kind of people. oh well. Maybe someone will remember me the next time I'm up here at fermilab and headbanging at the CDF BBQ.
I need a nap
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Wednesday, July 21st, 2004
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I actually don't do so well when someone just tells me what to do and then I go do it (like how my project started and has been up until last week). Now I make more progress in a day than I did in a week originally, because now I understand what I'm doing and can figure out the problems myself and overcome them.
On the other hand, having to share a car with my roommates really drags me down. I'm up at 7-730 every morning, and am always ready to go by 830. Most of them get up at 830 (one just doesn't get up on his own). The other fun thing, is that they stay up all night making noise. Luckily I'm vindictive, so if they keep me awake all night through the paper-thin walls, then I let my alarm run for a few minutes, get up slam every door, then clank around in the kitchen...you get the idea. Damned inconsiderate people. One roommate had a really loud cellphone conversation in the bathroom last night that woke me. I would have just gotten up and asked him to move into the livingroom or outside, but when I'm awakened rudely like that (especially if it is done just after I fall asleep) I'm invariably close to a rampage.
Okay, well I'm going to take my books and flee the library before they cast me out.
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Some news:
Yesterday, attempting to not have to buy gas (because one of the roommates said he'd do it) we ran out about half a mile from the gas station. It was a good thing, though. I bought the gas and gas can: $40. And then Devon bought the food: $160. He's going to get $100 from Scott, and so that means, that I'll have paid 40 for food, Devon will have paid 60, and Scott will have paid $60. Muhuahahaha.
I gave a presentation today at 11. It went well, I actually knew most of what I was asked. I did the vast majority of the talking. Now I'm burning daylight. I really can't afford to. I need to work on my project writeup in my spare work time, and on my final Rochester presentation...Holy Crap! I just realized that rather than fight for scrap time on Devon's computer, I can make use of the transparency printer here and just do the Rochester presentation from work. Woohoo!
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thirsty.