30 something

I am writing on some paper.

2011-11-03T04:37:00.001-07:00

One more test.

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I am writing on some paper.

via this isn't happiness. on 11/2/11

I am writing on some paper.

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2011-11-01T16:55:00.001-07:00

Trying some crap

You should own this book

2010-05-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

Part 2

2010-02-14T07:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I sent a V7 that I had been working on for ages. Well, maybe it's V7; the moves aren't really all that hard, but the beta is really tricky. Either way, it was a project, now it's done, and I am happy about that.

Afterwards, I roasted a rib roast using this as a rub (using tablespoons for the measurements rather than teaspoons and finely minced garlic instead of garlic powder). Delicious.

Edit: Sorry to the jackals in the comments - I missed a quote in my HTML tags.

Infuriating

2010-01-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

I'm applying for jobs at the moment, and last week I found out about a third interview. I sent an e-mail to my former advisor telling him this, and I got a quick reply saying that he was expecting that because he had talked to someone there. He also said that there were some things I should make sure to include in my presentation, but we should talk about it on the phone.

I haven't been able to get a hold of him since.

I've been building up to these interviews for the past 7ish years, there's something I should make sure to bring up to sell myself to these people, but I can't find out what it is. Awesome.

MPI and FFTW on Snow Leopard

2010-01-06T11:02:00.000-08:00

Random bits of (hopefully useful) information for anyone trying to install MPI and FFTW on Snow Leopard. I had to reinstall both because Snow Leopard apparently broke it when I upgraded from Leopard.

Anyway, when you run ./configure to install MPI, run it as:
$ ./configure CC="gcc -m32"
Apparently gcc now defaults to 64-bit, and this fixes it. The make and make install steps should work as usual.

As for FFTW - versions 3.2 and 3.3alpha won't compile by default, even though ./configure succeeds. You'll need this patch to fix things. Download it and save it somewhere, download and unzip FFTW, then cd into the FFTW directory. Next, run:
$ patch -p0 < /path/to/patch/directory/fftw3-SnowLeopard.patch
Then compile, make, make install as you normally would. I'm not sure if this also applies to fftw 2.whatever, but this site may have more info.

The year & decade in review.

2009-12-31T12:06:00.000-08:00

We're 12 hours from 2010, and Kim's post got me thinking about where I was ten years ago. In college (junior year of undergrad). I had just found the first outdoor activity I really enjoyed (snowboarding, thanks to Mike). I had just figured out that I wanted to be a professor. I played bass for a swing band and occasionally in the music section for plays. I was single and had been for years.

Ten years later, I'm still effectively in college (about to begin the 2nd year of the postdoc). I have pretty much abandoned snowboarding for climbing; fair trade, I think, given that snowboarding requires involved trips and paying >$50 a day. Climbing keeps me in better shape, anyway. I haven't touched a bass in a few years now, and I miss it. I still want to be a professor. I have interviews coming up for such a job, but only two of them so I'm very nervous about it. And of course, I married the coolest chick ever.

Honestly, I think I'm on track, though I wish like hell I'd get a real income soon, preferably at a place a little bit closer to home.

As for 2009, well, we moved to CA right at the beginning of the year. I had only one simple new year's resolution: to not climb indoors all year, and I'm happy that I pulled it off. It helps that good outdoor climbing is closer than a good gym. I had other climbing goals that weren't met (a V7), but overall it's been an OK year. It's probably the first year in a long time where I would say that in general life didn't necessarily get a lot better, but they didn't get worse, either. I'm less excited about where I live, but I enjoy my work, the paper count is up to 14, and with any luck we'll move someplace affordable and permanent this fall.

The first few months of 2010 will probably be insane. First: interviews. I freak out just thinking about it. There's a previous research presentation to many people, then a second presentation on my planned research, plus a full day of one-on-one meetings to talk research. And I only have two chances to get it right. Then, in early March, there's the invited talk at APS. Also terrifying.

And at some point I will climb this thing. I'll have more to say about that some other time..

Random stuff

2009-12-08T12:23:00.000-08:00

I was just writing some notes in one of my work notebooks. After writing the word "asymptotic", I paused for a split (but finite) second to see if the red line appeared under it to indicate a misspelling.

You may notice that the map in the previous post (a month ago...) is updated a little bit. The yellow pegs are places that I have heard have asked for my letters of recommendation, which they won't do if they're not interested. Apparently interview invites usually go out near the end of the year, so fingers crossed.

Jobby Jobs 2.0

2009-11-01T17:55:00.000-08:00

It's academic application season, and on Friday I got my first rejection letter of the year! It would be less depressing if it hadn't come from a place I was reasonably excited about, but such is life I guess. The map below shows all of the places that I have applied; the red one marks the jerks that rejected me. I'll have my vengeance...

View Jobby Jobs in a larger map

A bad fall

2009-09-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to write about this now that I know everything is pretty much OK. Yesterday I got to be on belay and see what happens when you're not wearing a helmet and you fall while lead climbing with your foot behind the rope.

I had just TRed the climb, and wasn't too keen on it. The girl I was climbing w/ most of the day seemed pretty excited to lead it, so we pulled the rope and off she went. It starts off easily enough through the first three bolts, then there is some significant space between the 3rd and 4th bolts, and thin holds around the 4th bolt to clip. She got up into the thinner section and couldn't find a stance to place the draw and clip, downclimbed, tried again, downclimbed, etc. This went on for quite a while, while some spraylord on the ground was yelling directions to her. She climbed up one final time to try his beta, realized she was coming off, and started downclimbing as much as she could.

She downclimbed a couple of moves, while I got ready to catch a fall. I saw her come off, I clenched my brake hand, and prepared to give in to her fall to give a soft catch. When I do that, I look down to see where I'm going to get pulled. Right as I looked away from her, I saw her getting flipped upside down. I didn't actually see the last part of the fall, so I missed her flipping upside down and into the wall, sans helmet.

When I looked back up, she was still upside down, looking towards us on the ground, with what looked like a pretty scared and confused look in her eyes. We started off asking her if she was OK, then blood started dripping down around us, so I immediately lowered her to the ground. A couple of guys who worked as ski patrol in the winters were nearby and knew how to approximately assess head injuries, so they made sure she wasn't in any real danger. She just had a giant gash in the back of her head.

Long story short, they figured that she didn't have a concussion, and after sitting around while we cleaned our gear for a bit and wrapped her head w/ some gauze, she said she was ok enough make it back to the car. That's no small feat, considering it was a 5th class traverse over water followed by a 20 minute hike.

We got her to the hospital back in SB (2ish hour car ride), where she got 6 stitches and a CT scan that revealed a cracked skull. When they pulled her hair apart to stitch the wound, I could see her skull.

I could see her fucking skull.

Apparently a cracked skull isn't something that always requires an overnight stay at the hospital, because she got to go home as long as someone was around to check on her. She hasn't had any problems yet, so apparently everything is fine and her head will heal on its own. Insanity.

And the part that boggles my mind the most? She never screamed, or cried, or even really freaked out at all that I saw. The only thing that seemed to get to her at all was finding out her skull was cracked. I'm sure I would've lost my shit if it happened to me and I saw that much blood coming from my head.

So that's what happened the 5th day I went route climbing this year.

FSM!

2009-09-05T08:58:00.001-07:00

I saw the flying spaghetti monster in an MD simulation. HE IS REAL!!

Not much

2009-06-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

That's what's going on. But I do have a picture that cracks me up of SG "flying" a kite.

She did have it off the ground for quite a while, as you can see.

Really, not much else has been going on. I'll start trying to update more, though. I haven't been climbing because I have a swollen knuckle, but I'm testing it on some easier climbs tomorrow. I went to the Dr about the knuckle and my still-swollen knee, but that was kind of worthless.

Fire pictures

2009-05-06T18:12:00.000-07:00

This is where the fire was yesterday with two of the mountains labeled. Clicky for higher res.

And this is a picture I took from my bike on my way home today. The same two peaks are labeled. Sorry for the poor quality, the picture was taken from ~3 miles farther away, but you can clearly see how far the fire has come in the past 24ish hours.

One last shot, a bit more zoomed out.

We're still quite safe from everything, but obviously the fire is moving quickly. It'll have to jump a couple of freeways to get to us, but apparently that's not impossible, so let's just hope it doesn't happen.

I quit.

2009-05-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

Right after we moved to SB, SG and I hiked around one of the bouldering areas. I didn't climb that day cause I was in the middle of my winter break from climbing, but we saw one boulder problem that really caught my eye:

The problem starts on the chalked holds in front of my chest, moves through the hold that my hand is on (which has since broken off), into the giant hueco up and left from my head, then on up to the top of the boulder. You might think that getting your feet up into the hueco and standing up would be the crux, but you'd be wrong. While not easy, that part is perfectly doable. In fact, here's a series of pictures showing most of the opening moves:

And that's where I fall. I"ve gone and worked on this problem a couple of times a week for about a month now, and I've been stuck in the same spot for around 3 weeks.

So I give up, and I'm going to find something else to fall off of. The end.

Mindless drivel

2009-05-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article suggesting changes to the university system, and what follows are my unorganized thoughts and comments on it.

First off, I think the graduate school experience in the sciences and the humanities is certainly very different, and I would guess that most of his points apply more to the humanities and a lot less to the sciences. One of his biggest points is that he wants collaboration to be easier and more fluid without departments getting in the way (points 1-3 are basically different ways of stating that), and I've never heard of people in the sciences having trouble with that. I know that both the NSF and NIH encourage collaborative, interdisciplinary [God, that word and "leveraged funding" are the academic equivalent of "synergy"] work, and a lot of my grad school work was on a grant involving four professors from four different departments at three different universities.

I also once sat in on a meeting with my old advisor where three PIs were debating the details of a proposal they were planning to submit. It was to involve 4 PIs from UW from three different departments, and the combined roles of each would have the project span quantum mechanics calculations all the way up to in vivo lab testing. If that's not ignoring the boundaries between departments and people's specific training to solve a problem, I really don't know what is.

His 4th point refers to the dissertation/thesis, and I more or less agree that they're not the most useful thing in the world. You still have to have a committee of people ok your graduation, though, so I don't see an easy way around the defense.

His final point is also interesting where he suggests forced retirement (strongly disagree with that one) and eliminating tenure (not a bad idea). His suggestion of renewing profs on 7 year contracts is an interesting one. Maybe you get a sabbatical when your contract is renewed as a reward or something? My big concern here, though, is that it may further de-emphasize professors whose primary role is teaching. I think that role is ignored too much as it is, and creating a means to push those professors out and replace them with more active researchers is a little dangerous. I disagree with forced retirement because there are a lot of professors who stay active well into old age and beyond normal retirement, and forcing them out because they reached some arbitrary age is retarded. The seven-year contract would easily take care of this, anyway.

Of course, take my comments with a requisite grain of salt since I'm one of the very few who enjoyed grad school. I worked for a top prof. in my field at one of the top departments in the country, so my experience had just about every opportunity to be good.

OK, mindless rant set to off. I'm going to go play Fallout until baseball comes on.

Schuster: If You're Planning Tea Bagging Across The Country....

2009-04-15T16:59:00.001-07:00

2:41 of awesome. MSNBC gets cool points for this.

Hey Joe

2009-03-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

How is it that I went about 29 years without ever hearing Hendrix's version of Hey Joe? That's a freakin tragedy, I tells ya. Freakin. Tragedy.

I haven't updated in a while because I haven't had much of interest to say. I went to the APS conference last week, and it went pretty well. My talk wasn't too much of a train wreck, and I skipped a day of talks to go see the grandparents down in Elkins, WV, which was fun. Now, for the first time in I can't remember how long, I have no definite trips planned. I'm hoping to go to a conference in November, but that's so far off it just doesn't matter.

I'm trying to finally get on a regular climbing schedule that doesn't include gym climbing. The post-spring-time-change days aren't as long in southern Cal. as they are in WI, so I blew my REI dividend on a double-mantle lantern to provide some light and let me climb a bit past dark. I tried it on Tuesday night, and while I didn't stay until it was very dark, the lantern definitely helped.

Well, it helped me see. I still couldn't really hold on to or climb much of anything. But I could see the holds! It would've been a frustrating night if it hadn't been so damn nice and quiet outside.

3Y3 |-|4X0R5 UR P53!1!one!

2009-03-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Is that even real 1337 speak? Who knows. Some jerk requested that I blog about installing Linux on my PS3. The short summary: it's easy. Go here, follow the instructions, and you end up with a functional version of Ubuntu on your PS3.

Unfortunately, that functional version of Ubuntu wouldn't do what I wanted, so I'm going to have to try again. Well, let's put the blame where it belongs: it's more likely that I couldn't figure out how to make that functional version of Ubuntu do what I wanted. Either way, the whole reason for this endeavor is for me to try some of my work on my PS3 and see if it can run calculations that normally take a week in a few hours. This requires me getting FFTW installed and using the Cell processor of the PS3, which I can't do without the SDK for the PS3. I couldn't figure out how to install that using Ubuntu, but I did find instructions from the kind folks at IBM that should solve my problem.

I'll have to switch to a different version of Linux (yellowdog - never used it) to try this, but I'm ok with that. It seems like every time I try to use Ubuntu it installs easily enough, but won't do anything useful other than browse the web and check email. I hope I never get the stupid idea to try it again, and I don't get all the praise it receives. I have openSUSE running at work, and I was pretty impressed with it. Then I tried to print something, and I remembered why Linux doesn't have a decent install base.

The dork concentration in this post is high.

meedley meedley meeeeeee!

2009-03-06T08:23:00.001-08:00

The "interview" in NYC went reasonably well, or as well as could be expected since a complete moron was going for the interview. I arrived on Thursday after several flight delays and didn't really have time to do anything at the hotel other than leave my bags before running off to dinner, which was holy-shit-amazing. And many hundreds of dollars for 4 people. But did I mention amazing?

I woke up the next morning feeling pretty good. I slept well, had some coffee, and went over my slides before I had to shower and get dressed.

This is about when I noticed that I didn't bring my dress shirt. After about 10 minutes of panic, I realize that I didn't really have much choice but to go through the day in the same clothes I wore to dinner. Of course, later I realized that I had several friends in the city that are approximately my size I could have called, but in my panicked state that didn't occur to me. Oh well. The day went OK overall. I didn't give as good of a presentation as I would have liked, but it wasn't bad by any means. There are some sections of my talk I need to re-work, though. I felt like all of the one-on-one discussions went well.

But really, who knows what they thought. It wasn't a proper interview, and they made it clear from the beginning that if we went forward, I would be coming back to do a formal interview. That at least makes me feel less like a jackass for not wearing a suit.

Anyway, after the stressful part of my day was over, I spent the next day and a half playing with Matt and Sam, which was awesome. Pictures below!

After careful deliberation...

I have decided to approve of this bridge!

Apparently everyone takes this picture.

This guy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is scared because he's about to run over me with his boat.

This was a really cool Dali painting. The picture doesn't really do it much justice, unfortunately.

Apparently they had graffiti in 1820, too.

Spokes

2009-03-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

I replaced a broken spoke on my bike today. I only lost a couple of wheel bearings and had one part left over when I put things back together. I rule!

Yikes

2009-02-24T20:19:00.000-08:00

I went mountain biking for the first time last weekend, and never once felt like puking! The bike that I borrowed had a little computer on it, apparently we went 4.5 mi uphill over the span of a few hours, then back down the 4.5 mi over the span of a few minutes. Pictures:

A crappy house.

The view towards downtown.

Another crappy house.

The ghetto continues.

View from near the top of our climb. If you click to get the big version, then squint, you can see a trail near where we started in the bottom-middle of the picture.

This weekend I'm flying to NYC for a sorta interview and a couple of days of hanging out. I'm really nervous about the interview because I have to give a 45ish minute presentation on my research. I get really nervous when I give talks, and when I get nervous I talk fast, making it hard to time my talks. Depending on how nervous I get, the timing car vary by like 30 or 40%, which means I could end up either talking way too long or way too short. It's not usually a problem when I'm only supposed to talk about 15 minutes, like at a conference.

All of this makes me nervous about getting nervous. It's stupid, but Friday around noon EST it'll be over for a couple of months. So we'll see.

Rolling on

2009-02-16T19:42:00.000-08:00

That's what work looks like most days. Lots and lots o' pencil and paper stuff, then coding, usually followed by profanity.

Life is settling into something normal, and every day it feels less like I'm supposed to get on a plane and head back to Madison. Next week I fly to NYC to give my first real invited seminar, and I'm fairly terrified of it. I always get nervous giving talks, and while I have plenty of crap to talk about, I'm afraid of going up there nervous, talking too fast, and finishing in like half of my time.

Man, I had great ambitions for this post and it's just not happening. I'm too tired, so I'm stopping now. Hopefully it won't be another month before the next post...

The drive and the arrival

2009-01-01T15:04:00.000-08:00

Good God, the drive was long. Iowa was OKish, because we were just getting started. Nebraska sucked, but Wyoming was nice for all of its emptiness. Utah was, of course, beautiful, but by far the best leg of the trip was the 30 miles we spent in Arizona. We drove through the Virgin River Gorge to go from cold weather to t-shirt weather. The VRG is freakin' amazing, and I want to go back. Anyway, pictures below. All taken by SG, who will hopefully one day write up a better summary of our trip and arrival than I can manage.

We drove past the climbing area Vedauwoo, famous for its off-widths (blech..).

Lots o' nothing in WY.

We drove past the Sinclair refinery in middle-of-nowhere WY.

Mountains with waning snow as we got closer to AZ.

This is part of the VRG. Pictures don't even do it justice.

Mountains in NV somewhere.

The car was a little filthy after the trip. I'm still amazed that thing pulled a trailer 2200 miles with no problems. This next bunch of pictures are the bike path between home and work, and a little bit of the beach on campus.

These last two shots are up in the mountains. We saw better scenery the first day, but SG forgot her camera. We'll be going back up there often, so more pictures will come.

The final mileage from door-to-door was 2239.

Is this thing on?

2008-12-28T06:57:00.000-08:00

Man. 6 days and ~2200 miles later, I'm in CA. I live in California. I'm on Pacific time. My car will have to pass emissions testing. Arnold Schwarzenegger is my governor. My rent tripled. It's 35F outside, and that's about as cold as it will ever get.

I haven't really seen much of SB just yet. The sun set as we were driving around LA (holy God, their traffic is worse than you've heard), so it was pretty dark as we drove through SB to our apartment. I still haven't seen the Pacific Ocean yet, though I could see some lights reflecting off of it.

The apartment is awesome - it's nearly as big as some of our older apartments, which I didn't think we'd be able to afford here. Everything in it is new, and the neighborhood looks pretty nice from what I could see last night. There's a nice groshy store within easy walking distance of our place.

The trip went as well as we could have hoped. No car troubles, and we were able to maintain ~70 MPH, even with the trailer. Only about 10 miles of the whole trip was scary from the snow, and after we drove out of the mountains of Utah into AZ, it was smooth sailing. Hopefully at some point SG will post pictures from the trip; a lot of it was amazing (the Virgin River Gorge was a nice surprise).

Yeap. I'm in CA.

R Kelly?

2008-10-03T08:08:00.000-07:00

From this thread on Fark about Palin in last night's debate:

xgnu: All that winking made her look like a dumb slut. I've peed on women that act like that.

Inequality

2008-10-02T07:06:00.000-07:00

Venn

2008-10-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

I've been having trouble convincing myself to update this thing, mostly because I don't have much to talk about since I moved the climbing talk elsewhere. One of the things that I mindlessly do while at work is browse Fark, and I often dig through the comments looking for the occasional amusing post or picture. I think I'm going to start posting the stuff I find most amusing here. So with that in mind, a Venn diagram.

Mr. Deity

2008-08-15T19:23:00.001-07:00

Mr. Deity

2008-07-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

Worth checking out.

I hated it.

2008-07-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Which OS are You?

I tried this version of Linux several years ago; it didn't work for me.

AMI

2008-07-08T11:34:00.000-07:00

I stumbled across the best paragraph I've read online in a while. From mlb.com:

" 'It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that Jason Giambi's hitting prowess plus a fashionable mustache equals a bona fide All-Star,' said Aaron Perlut, executive director of the American Mustache Institute. 'Giambi's significant first-half production as well as his powerful lip fur -- indicating great intellect and good looks -- make two very compelling reasons for his place on the American League All-Star roster.' "

June said she knew there'd be some people from the south here tonight

2008-06-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Another postdoc offer came in last Friday afternoon. While it's disappointing to not go live near Vagisil Mike, SG and I are pretty excited that we're moving to somewhere near Santa Barbara, CA.

Below is a map with the building I'll be working in pegged, and the blue line marks out the ~540 ft path I would have to follow to get to the beach. There are (relatively small) mountains two miles in the other direction, and the research I'm going to do I think will be pretty rad. w00+.

View Larger Map

Miserable creatures

2008-06-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

A damn bee flew in one of the air vents on my bike helmet on my way home today and stung me on top of the head.

It was unbelievably painful, and I don't recommend it at all.

Utah bound?

2008-06-10T05:53:00.000-07:00

I have been applying for postdocs in a few other research groups around the country (and two in Amsterdam), and apparently I'm going to get at least one offer. I have mixed feelings about leaving Madison. I really like it here a lot, and work is kicking some butt these days. On the other hand, most of my life in Madison seems to have moved on to other things while I'm still climbing and working like usual, so perhaps it's time to go. Either way, I'm less opposed to the idea of moving than I once was, and I'm getting a little excited about it.

Well, not excited about the moving part, but excited about moving on. The one offer that I'm fairly confident I'll receive is in Salt Lake City, which would be 10 kinds of awesome. The biggest hang-up of the whole situation is that I can't really leave until the end of the year, and our apartment won't let us leave during the winter. So we have to move at the end of next month, then turn around and move again 5 months later. Happy happy, joy joy.

So we'll see what happens, but for now, here's to (possibly) moving on!

Preemptive Strike

2008-05-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

Wow, haven't updated this site in ages (a few updates at the other blag). I've been wanting to, I just haven't had the gumption to do it yet.

And I still don't.

So rather than a real update, I'll just post a picture that was in a thread on fark that made me laugh.

Arg, jet lag

2008-04-16T03:48:00.000-07:00

I made it back to Madison yesterday! It was a pretty great trip overall, but I'm glad to be home. The first two weeks I worked more or less constantly, except for two days where I went climbing. SG came for the final week, so I stopped working nearly as much and we walked all over the freakin' place to look at ruins and whatnot, which was exhausting but fun. I'm sure SG will do a better job of documenting that part of the trip than me, so I'll leave it to her.

Madison warmed up while I was gone, and I came home to my favorite time of year in this town. The weather is still quite cool, but it's plenty warm enough to be outside. The grass is just starting to turn green, the mornings are still brisk, the days are getting longer, but its not generally crowded at the climbing areas (yet). I'm excited to be back, and things are looking good for the next few months. I don't have any significant travel plans (that I can think of...), I have some cool stuff going on research-wise, and I'm anxious to really get going climbing outside this year. An outdoor 5.12 and V6 are the goals for the year!

I managed to go to Athens with no real effects of jet lag, but coming home is another story. It's 6AM, and I've been awake for about 2.5 hours already. At this point I'm just waiting on the sun to come up so I can go ahead and bike to work. Today is going to be a crazy-busy day, but hopefully tomorrow things will go back to "normal".

And, as I typed that, the sun peaked over the horizon. Time to shower and see if my bike still functions after a year of sitting in the garage.

Αθηνα (that means Athens)

2008-03-27T02:39:00.000-07:00

I made it to Athens with no problems, although the language barrier since I've been here has been intimidating to say the least. It's really damn hard to get used to their alphabet. I think it would be easier if it were completely different and not occassionally similar; I keep getting thrown when I see Η and have to thing "ee" sound, or ω, which should sound like "o", or ν which should sound like "n". I finally found a grocery store this morning, so I think I can finally stop going out to eat at night, which will make my evenings much less stressful because it's less Greek that I'll have to stumble through. The people I'm working with have been awesome so far. They insist on paying for my coffee, but I don't think they understand how expensive that will get.

One of the things that I'm supposed to figure out while I'm here is what I want to do next. Last fall I applied for about 30 faculty positions, and while I don't think I've received a rejection letter from all of them yet, it's getting close. Either way, it's time to move on to plan B, which doesn't exist yet. I was really hoping that I would have a better shot a faculty position this year, but that's obviously not happening at this point, and so I think I have around three options.

Option α) I could just go ahead and apply for industrial positions, and I would probably have one by the end of the year at the latest. SG and I would certainly be out of debt the fastest this way, and it would be nice to finally have a good enough salary to buy a house and let SG have more time to develop her store. I just don't think I'm ready to give up on the faculty "dream" yet, so frankly I'm not really considering this option very much.

Option β [that letter makes a "v" sound, btw]) The next option would be to try to get a postdoc somewhere else. This is the plan that would be most likely to get me a faculty position in the future, though it would probably still mean two years at this "somewhere else" on a postdoc salary before moving someplace permanent, and then of course there are no guarantees that I would get a faculty position. I think there is the potential for me to really enjoy the work a lot, and as cheesy as it sounds, I would grow as a scientist quite a bit. Of course, there's also the possibility that the postdoc goes poorly and then I still don't get a faculty position.

This option also requires moving, which I hate. The last time SG and I moved, it was a total disaster because of the ridiculous quantity of shit that we own. I know this sounds like a trivial thing to plan around, but you really have no idea how bad the move was; I have never been so exhausted in my life, not even after the off-the-couch-half-marathon. If I got a faculty position or an industrial job, I would negotiate it so that they moved me and we had to do next to nothing. This is not possible with a postdoc. It would also require a drastic change in mine and SG's lifestyle at least temporarily, and I would be asking SG to yet again find another job while waiting on me to get to wherever I'm going, neither prospect am I really crazy about.

Option γ [that's a gamma, not a "y", and I can't figure out what the right sound is for it]) Stay in Madison and keep doing the postdoc that I have now with my PhD advisor. This is probably the worst option as far as a potential scientific career goes, other than going straight into industry. I would have to talk this over with my advisor, but I think he would let me stay if I really wanted to. I love living in Madison, I like the research environment that I have in my advisor's group (the research itself and the freedom that I get to do what I want, plus I'm in freakin' Greece for work, how awesome is that?), and I'm generally very happy. Since we wouldn't have to move on our own dollar like in option β, SG and I could potentially be out of debt by the end of the year or so, which means we can start saving for a house.

As much as it might damage my chances at a future faculty position, this is the option that I'm leaning towards the most. I don't think it kills any chance at a future faculty position, as I am learning new things, and I'm probably going to easily double my total number of papers this year, but it does hurt my case. That said, I'm not sure I care enough to go through a move I really don't want to make into a postdoc for two more years only to possibly have a better chance at a faculty position.

If I stayed here, I could apply for faculty positions again this fall and put together a much better application package (last year's wasn't bad, but it was a little rushed and sent out late). Then, if after AIChE the faculty prospects are not looking promising, I could start applying for industry jobs. I'm not as opposed to getting a job in industry as I once was, and it would have its benefits. If I didn't obsess over my work quite so much, I could possibly have more free time. I miss playing my bass, I was getting to be decent on the banjo before life got in the way, and more time with SG is never a bad thing. Plus, whenever the inevitable family gets started, I might actually have time to spend with the little monsters.

So I guess that's where my planning stands; I think just typing all of that out helped me to think about it. Since I'm considering staying in Madison longer, I can't help but to wonder if my motivation for it falls into the "deciding-by-not-deciding category" or the possible fear of failure at a different postdoc (perhaps I'm arrogant, but I don't think that would happen unless I was just unhappy).

Hopefully my next post will be less serious, and I'm more hopeful that it will contain pictures of me climbing something awesome. Well, it'll probably be hangdogging as much as I've been climbing lately, but still...

You will lose

2008-03-17T19:47:00.000-07:00

I cannot be defeated!

No real news to report at the moment..I got back from APS on Friday, and overall the trip went OK. In one of my presentations, I don't think it was entirely clear to the audience what I had done, which really sucks, but I guess it's going to happen when you only practice in front of people who know what you're doing.

I saw some interesting talks while I was there. They had several days of lectures in honor of Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, a nobelaureate in physics. I particularly enjoyed the talk by Michael Rubinstein, and then it had a...lively...discussion afterwards. Someone asked him about some recent experiments and he flat out refused to comment on them, which was a little weird. Then the next person who asked him a question brought up the same experiments, and he still wouldn't talk about them. Meanwhile, a third scientist was furiously squirming in his chair, waiting on his turn to bicker about a scaling law. It was weird.

I'm off to Greece on Sunday and will be gone for 3.5 weeks or so. SG is coming over after a couple weeks, so we're currently trying to plan our misadventures. I'm trying to figure if I'll have time to go to Kalymnos, and I think I just might have to make time. You can see below why.

Sonya seeking Kano?

2008-02-27T12:12:00.001-08:00

This is a want ad that was linked on reddit that I thought was awesome. I wonder if he/she got any response, but it's weird that it's under "Legal Notices".

I've been far too busy to update regularly...I recently found out that I'm giving two talks next week at APS, and one of them is on a topic that's relatively new to me, so I'm scared to give it. It doesn't help that my advisor wants me to make some arguments that I'm not convinced we can back up. And APS gives you 12 freakin minutes to talk. 12! How can you present anything clearly in that time? After APS, I have to revise two papers and resubmit them in a week (shouldn't be too horrible, although one of them has three pages of nitpicky reviewer comments), then I'm off to Greece for 3.5 weeks. I plan on updating more while I'm gone, but I guess that will depend on how busy I am.

I started a second blag as a vent for the part of me that wants to talk about climbing non-stop. Feel free to avoid it, as it shall be boring.

Dammit all

2008-02-21T15:30:00.001-08:00

For those that don't know, that's the kiss of death for an Xbox 360. What am I supposed to do now, go outside in this bullshit weather or something?

Slight discoloration

2008-02-02T13:01:00.000-08:00

Last night SG hit my foot with a hammer when I wouldn't get up and get her a bowl of ice cream. Now my 2nd smallest toe is purple and hurts like hell.

The last one, I promise...

2008-01-31T10:41:00.001-08:00

Man, I wish they would release this show as a DVD set. Apparently, MTV decided to continue to suck and not release it.

Chicken sandwich, Carl

2008-01-31T10:28:00.001-08:00

Call me old fashioned...

2008-01-31T10:25:00.001-08:00

Hiccup

2008-01-29T12:45:00.001-08:00

It's 2:44 in the afternoon, and I have been hiccuping since 8:30 this morning. I'm about to lose my damn mind.

Not much

2008-01-23T17:19:00.000-08:00

Not much to talk about at the moment. I'm getting sent to Greece in March or so, which should be awesome, but other than that, work has been fairly quiet. The Greece trip should be awesome, though. I'm excited to work with the Prof. over there, and the climbing in Greece is supposed to be amazing. I need to start learning the language, I guess.

So in the interest of this post not being completely worthless, here's an amusing link. It's an oldie but goodie, and be sure to read the Your Letters and Your Testimonials sections.

Underwater insanity.

2008-01-14T06:03:00.000-08:00

While it loses some cool points for being bio-related, this is still cool stuff. Clicky.

Arg

2008-01-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

Wow, long time, no update. It's funny, because it feels like nothing has happened in the past month, but really a lot has. I'm officially Dr. Dragonslayer (which is odd), my family came to visit me when I graduated (which was awesome), Christmas came and went (also awesome), I'm listening to a lot of loud music these days (also awesome), and after a few weeks off I'm back at work (neither bad nor awesome).

Graduating didn't really bring about any changes. I'm still working on mostly the same projects, but I almost have them all finished up so that I can move on to something different. I still feel like I'm stuck in limbo and I'm not sure where I'm going to live in 6 months. I've applied for faculty jobby jobs all over the country, but so far I have no bites. The process is still moving along, and I know I'm still in the running in at least three places, but I've also been rejected from 6 places so far. I have no idea what I'm going to do if something doesn't pan out.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get back into updating this thing more often.

About that Ph.D. thing...

2007-11-28T07:28:00.001-08:00

Here's a prime example of just how dumb I am, and why I should not get a Ph.D. I always have a bottle of water sitting at my desk. This morning when I filled it up, for some dumb reason I didn't tighten the cap all the way down. When I just went to take a drink, I squeezed the bottle as I drank, the cap came off, hit me in the eye, and water went *everywhere*. I have three computers at my desk right now; they're all wet, and my clothes are soaked.

Now I get to sit here and weigh my desire for more coffee against the embarrassment of going into the grad student lounge to heat up the water looking like I just peed myself. 138 indeed.

Impending defense...

2007-11-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

I'm defending my thesis this Monday at 10. It's really weird to me to think that by noon of that day, I'll probably have my a Ph.D. Officially. I've been working on the presentation all week, and my palms sweat with nervousness at the thought of actually giving it.

In related news, for the past three weeks or so I have been sending applications out for faculty positions across the country. I have sent exactly 30 applications, and today I received my first rejection letter. Those folks in Canada don't waste any time telling you no.

Leopard made a strong comeback.

2007-11-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

I just spend 4 days at AIChE, a huge chemical engineering conference, where I gave two talks. The conference was in Utah, and I got to stay with Mooks for a couple of days. We went bouldering in Little Cottonwood Canyon, which was kind of disappointing because the problems were sandbagged and just not as fun as what we did the 2nd day. Friday we drove south for a couple hours to climb in some place called Triassic, which turned out to be all kinds of awesome. It was by far the best day of bouldering I've ever had.

The scenery around Triassic, where I went bouldering. Pretty awesome.

One of the problems I worked on and didn't even come close to finishing.

A variation on the previous problem, which I also didn't come close to finishing.

I like this picture cause I look surprised I'm still holding on. I almost finished this problem, but my arms decided to spasm painfully during the topout, and I fell. I only actually got up one problem all day...a V0. The picture doesn't really show how steep the problem is...

Leopard didn't even last 8 hours

2007-10-30T18:49:00.001-07:00

Today on my ride home from school, I decided that there are two types of hills one encounters on a bike. Type 1 is the obvious thrutchfest. You see type 1 from a distance, dread it the whole time you're approaching it, and once you're on it, it sucks as bad as you thought it would. But you expect it to suck, you don't fight dropping into a low gear, and you ride it out. You're panting when you reach the top, but you expected it and now it's over.

This is not at all like the second type of hill. The type 2 hill you don't even notice as you approach it. Hell, even while you're on it, it doesn't look bad, but for some reason you're mentally cussing up a storm at how much this tiny hill is kicking your butt. These hills ruin your trip home and make you want to stuff the bike in the garage and let it collect dust for (another) 6 months. You're also panting when you reach the top of these hills, but you're angry about it because you shouldn't be this tired after that supposedly slight incline. Worse yet, your confidence is shaken, because what if there's another hidden thrutchfest coming up?

I hate the type 2 hills.

Leopard is installing...

2007-10-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

By 6:45 this morning, I had already learned something: at 40°, the morning commute sucks without a pair of gloves and something covering my nose and ears.

Headache

2007-10-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Hi there. It's been a while, so I thought I might leave a quick update. In short, I'm busier than hell trying to finish school. I have a date for my defense (Dec. 3rd at 10AM; it's open to the public if you're that bored and food and coffee will be served), there's a big conference in two weeks where I'm giving two talks, and I have to start sending out job applications ASAP, which require writing three to four brief research proposals (not a small task). For all of these reasons, my head hurts more or less constantly, a vein on my left temple pulses, and I don't update.

I have, however, been slowly making my way through Guitar Hero 2 on expert (I only have Freebird left to beat) and I read all 7 Harry Potter books over a span of about 6 weeks or so.

Stupid humor

2007-09-24T18:36:00.001-07:00

Stolen from a post at rc.com:

you know what is the difference between a mathematician and an engineer?

if they both get an offer of having the most beautiful woman in the universe, but they can only approach her by halving the distance between them with each step, the mathematician will refuse, knowing he can never reach her.

but the engineer know he only has to get to a usable distance

Sans Chalk

2007-09-18T13:25:00.001-07:00

Edited this post to point out the obvious: I didn't take this picture; I saw it at rockclimbing.com and thought it was awesome. The shot originated from here, apparently.

I'm cursed!

2007-09-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

In the past week, I've managed to break three computers. Three! My linux machine at work just stopped turning on. The video card in my winXP machine at work croaked on me, which drives me insane since it was *my* video card, not a work card. Then, late last week, my Vista desktop at home starting hemmoraging blue screens of death! I thought Vista was supposed to be better than that? I'd like to reinstall Vista and be done with it, but that's not so easy because of my video card. The drivers for my particular card that come on the disk don't work, and they cause it to blue screen during boot up. So you have to put in a different video card, install vista, then install updated drivers for your real card. Unfortunately, I no longer have a spare video card laying around (see above), so this become a massive pain in the ass. At this point, if I could afford an iMac, I'd buy one and forget about it. My Macbook is awesome, and so far I haven't managed to break it. I mean, really, I thought Vista was supposed to be better than that. And to think I had been defending it as a not-as-terrible-as-you'd-think OS...

In climbing news, I finally managed to take down an old nemesis of mine. It's a toprope problem called "Orgasm Direct" (5.11b) at Devil's Lake. I've known how to do all the moves on the climb for several years now. Last summer I did it with one rest several times, and this past Saturday I finally put the whole thing together. After taking down this bastard of a climb and Pacific Ocean Wall a few weeks ago, I'm finally starting to tick off some of the problems that have been perplexing me for years. I think it's time for me to find a .12 that I like enough to work on for a while.

Ticklist

2007-09-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

I'm retarded. I wrote this stupid post like a week ago and never published it for some reason. The original post follows:

My Labor Day weekend was spent climbing in the Red River Gorge. Of the few places that I have gone climbing, it is far and away my favorite. This past weekend I got on:

Saturday
Fuzzy Undercling, 5.11b. My hardest red point to date, I didn't climb anything this well for the rest of the weekend. Figures I would blow my load on the first climb; not that I'm complaining, though.

Tissue Tiger, 5.12b. I struggled and to say that I actually climbed it would be to put it very generously.

Creep Show, 5.10d. I also struggled on this one. By this point in the day, the drive, dehydration, and three hours of sleep were wearing me down.

Creature Feature, 5.9. A blast of a climb featuring a huge roof and the best holds imaginable.

Sunday
International Route of Pancakes, 5.8. Interesting start, but overall not that great.

Preemptive Strike, 5.10c. Fantastic climb beginning with 10 feet of crimpy slab. This was followed by 80 feet of pulling on huge holds, with a nice view to boot.

Bushwacked, 5.10+. A mixed route with a huge roof; pretty fun climb, and extremely pumpy.

Boltergeist, 5.10b. 100 feet of fairly easy sport climbing. It doesn't get much better than this climb. It also started with a thin slab like thing, then eased up
for the other 90 feet.

Air-Ride Equiped, 5.11a. Very steep climbing on very large, flat holds. One of the coolest climbs I have ever done.

Manifest Destiny, 5.12a. This one was ugly for me as I had to hang on it a lot, but it was really fun.

Black Powder, 5.10b. Long, fun climb that I had done before. I think it was my first 5.10 lead a few years back. I remember that day B chasing 1% with a spider. She ran away squealing for about 4 or five steps, then turned around, and warned B that if he took one more step, she would kick him in the balls.

Dyn-o-mite, 5.9. Another long, easier climb that felt harder by this point in the day.

Monday
Up Yonder, 5.11b. This climb is becoming my nemesis at the Gorge; I've been on it several times and can never remember which of the damn holds are the good ones. It's not bad if you can just remember not to grab the chalked one- and two-finger pockets.

Ro Shampo, 5.12a. Burly, but felt vaguely doable. You know, if I were stronger and had more endurance.

Unfortunately there are no pictures since I traveled in a party of two...so instead, here is an old picture from a past Gorge trip. It's a picture of a certain clown porn connoisseur falling.

Music worth buying

2007-08-27T15:53:00.001-07:00

Mel Gibson and the Pants
Sea vs. Shining Sea
You can hear a sample and buy their stuff here.

Bouldering

2007-08-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning, I took a rare bouldering trip to try to get some climbing in before the rain settled in for the weekend. We only got to climb for about an hour before the weather turned on us, but we both managed to get up a spectacular problem, including the terrifying top-out. This is a picture of some guy I don't know climbing it; I stole the picture from here.

Since I got back from climbing yesterday, it's been a great weekend of vegging out and video games. There was a lot of Guitar Hero played yesterday (I swear Psychobilly Freakout is not possible on expert...), and now I'm playing the Xbox version of Ninja Gaiden. I die a lot in that game.

xkcd

2007-08-16T10:37:00.001-07:00

I'm currently obsessed with this comic, as it fits my sense of humor perfectly. Go the site the push the random button a lot, and I bet you'll laugh, too.

Me, "Simpsonized"

2007-08-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Sigh. You can do the same torture to yourself here.

dS < 0 is so naughty...

2007-08-09T14:04:00.001-07:00

Status

2007-08-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

I think I might occassionally update this thing again. I haven't been up to too much here lately other than the usual, climbing and work, which is going pretty well. I've been published two more times this year (here and here), submitted a third one, and have two more in the works. Graduation is coming up frighteningly fast...

Good Idea, Bad Idea

2007-01-19T18:12:00.001-08:00

Worthy of an update

2006-05-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

???

Les Calanques

2006-04-10T12:17:00.000-07:00

Wow, I don't even know where to start describing where I climbed last weekend. It was simply amazing. I've never really believed places like this actually exist; they're only pictures, just like the one a few posts ago. I didn't think they were real, and that you could actually go to those places. Or at least I didn't until Saturday. The climbing was really good, although the bolts were sparce. David, the guy who arranged the trip, lead a climb where the first bolt was at about 25 or 30 feet. Honestly, the place was so breathtaking I didn't even care to climb all that hard, I just wanted to have a good, relaxing day climbing. Sunday, we climbed closer to Marseille, but I have no pictures from that day. We spent all of our film on Saturday. But the climbing on Sunday was also great, with an amazing view of the city from the top of the climbs. There will be more pictures uploaded later when I update my other site.

OK, time for a couple of pictures. These were all taken by other people, my disposable camera hasn't been developed yet. Most of the pics will go on the other site, but I'll post a link here when they're uploaded.

The view at the base of where we climbed on Friday, near Le Pouzin.

The pre-climbing bread and salami, also on Friday at Le Pouzin.

Les Calanque. We spent most of the day climbing this tower. The longest lines on it were about 35m.

The view from the top of said tower. This shot does not even begin to do it justice.

Das dual boot

2006-04-06T09:28:00.000-07:00

Apple announced a new software yesterday that pretty much decided my next computer purchase. Boot Camp allows Apple owners to dual boot Windows XP. Welll not any Apple computer, just the Intel ones. I've been wanting to try an Apple for a long time, but I've never been willing to spend that much money on a machine that won't run games. Now they'll run Windows, and therefore games, so I'm more than willing. I think it would be smart for Apple to start making machines with higher end video cards, as I think a lot of people would be more willing to switch if games worked. Apparently Linux live CDs are also working on the new Macs, so you could have all three worthwhile OS's on one machine. HOTT.

I leave in an hour for my climbing adventure, I hope it goes well. We're stopping just north of Avignon to do some climbing, then heading on south to Marseille, where we'll climb at Les Calanque on Sat. Since some theif stole my batteries, I'm without a digital camera, so pics will have to wait until I get the crappy disposable developed after I get home. Five more days!

Friday, woohoo!!

2006-04-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

Oh wait, it's only Weds. Dammit.

A couple of weeks ago I was promised a climbing trip on my last weekend in France, and today I found out where we're going. It's called Callanque and is on the Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles. Holy freakin crap I can't wait.

8 more days

2006-04-04T11:14:00.000-07:00

I got an email yesterday saying I could finally test out google's page creator, so that's what I've been doing this evening, since I like playing with computer things. So far, I love it. It's all of the good components of a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) HTML editor without all the garbage. If I look at the source HTML, it doesn't look like hell like it does in Frontpage. I find myself wishing it had keyboard shortcuts, but that's something I can live without. I think the site will become even better when/if it has more templates. There have been rumors for ages that google is working on an online office suite, like MS Office, but accessible everywhere, and if they are, and if they all work as well as this, I think it will give MS some serious competition. You can see what I've done so far here. It's not much of anything yet.

I'm still in Lyon, still supposedly doing research with a professor in physics here. I've been here for 11 weeks, with one more week to go, and I'm ready to be home. At this point, I'm working on research stuff I could do more easily in Madison (writing/rewriting papers), so it feels like I'm here for no productive reason. It's also killing me to be away from SG for so long. What else do I miss about Madison...my friends, obviously. I miss the late nights at the climbing gym, drinking and climbing after they're closed. I miss the Great Dane's wings and beer. I miss my car and my bike. I miss the nights last fall when I would cook for me and SG while watching the Yankees on my laptop in the kitchen. I'm ready to do all of those things again when I get back.

I've also been thinking a lot while I've been gone, and there are other things I want to do when I get back. I don't think I can go back to climbing in the gym three days a week; my hands just can't take it, though climbing outside doesn't seem to bother them as much. I know I want to spend more time playing my basses. I used to be fairly good, and I'm going to get back to that. I'd like to take a martial art of some sort, but I'm not sure I'll have the time or money until after the wedding. But mostly I just want to be home.

Stereotypes....

2006-03-18T11:23:00.000-08:00

...the older I get, the more I see that they exist for a reason. Warning: most of this post is about climbing.

I went climbing with some French people outside today; we went to a small cliff just north of Lyon. It was a pretty nice, large amphitheatre shaped place with bolts EVERYWHERE. The French are known for bolting everything, but it was ridiculous in places. There was one spot where there were two bolts, separated by one foot, at head level off the ground, which I just don't understand. And it wasn't as though one of them was really old and the other one was there to replace it; they looked to be about the same age. If we go back there I'll take a picture and make sure the ground is in the shot.

Another thing the French are known for is pulling on gear, which I also saw a lot of. J is no longer the only person I know who has put his finger through the eye of a bolt. This isn't to imply that I'm above grabbing gear if its there and I'm about to fall, it was just funny to see the cliche in person.

Other random climbing bits that were a little nutty:
- We were leading with twin ropes (basically you carry two ropes instead of one), which I had never done before.
- Belaying with figure 8's (my normal belay device can't handle twin ropes).
- Setting topropes directly on the bolted anchors (BIG no-no in the US).
- I took my first lead fall outside today, though it was on a sport route.

More cliche crap not climbing related...last night I went to a guy's house for a wine and cheese party. They had some Brie, and that was the only cheese I had even heard of. The rest of it was some crazy looking stuff with skin and mold on it, but it was mighty tasty. Also, last night when they found out that the only traveling I've done in France was my awesome trip to Avignon with SG, it was decided that we would go somewhere to climb. I'm not sure where we're going..there was talk of the Verdon Gorge, but I don't know. I don't really care, I just want to get out of Lyon and climb, and I think it's very cool that these guys are willing to take me.

And I still can't stop listening to Rammstein...

Du Riechst So Gut

2006-03-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

I don't even know what that title means, but I cannot stop listening to Rammstein.

Today it was announced by Sony that the PS3, which was supposed to come out this spring, is now delayed until November. I have my doubts about it being able to be released even by then, because the same story also says that the final developer kits (what other companies use to make games if I understand correctly) don't go out until June. That gives people 4 months to finish a prospective launch title, and I don't see anything worth a damn happening that quickly. Also, no one knows how much this thing is going to cost (lowest estimate I've seen is $450), and two key peices of hardware don't work yet. I like the idea of the Xbox360, but I can't justify spending the money on one, especially when I'd also have to buy an HDTV to make it look better, and there still isn't a game for it that interests me.

I think I'm going to get a Revolution. Nintendo is completely redesigning the controller. I was initially interested in what they were going to do, then I played Metroid on the DS, and damned if they strike gold with the touchscreen. So now I can't wait to see what they do with the new controller. Plus, it'll probably be $200 cheaper.

And here's some random insanity.

Food post

2006-03-10T10:53:00.000-08:00

Today at lunch they served kangaroo!! They've served it before, but I wasn't quite brave enough to try it. It seems kind of wrong to eat something like that, like I'm eatting a panda or something. As SG put it, you don't eat animals that are at the zoo. Then I tried it, and it's damned if its not pretty tasty, if a little salty. Maybe next week they'll serve koala...

Other food-related grossness: a minor league baseball team is selling donut burgers. It's a patty, cheese, two pieces of bacon, and instead of a bun, you get two halves of a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. I can't imagine bacon with that much sugar, but given my troubles with bratwursts in the recent past, maybe I'll have to give them a try.

Gone

2006-03-08T11:29:00.000-08:00

SG had been here for a while, and we had the best week ever. We saw the nice parts of Lyon, however few of them there are, and our trip to Avignon was also awesome. And, of course, the best part of the week is that WE'RE ENGAGED!!! w00+ for us!! Many thanks to the folks who helped me keep all the scheming/planning a secret; you know who you are. Her tales of last week's shenanigans are better than anything I could spin, so I'll just direct you there.

This morning she had to leave to go back to Madison, and back to work tomorrow. I miss her already, and now I'm left to figure out how to turn this trip around in the five weeks I have left. I have to find a way to turn the research here around, and I got more shitty news on the research front: my first paper was rejected with some pretty negative comments. I guess this isn't too bad, as it was pretty much expected, but it still sucks to get rejected.

Last things: I have a couple of new links. First is to MOOKS, who is a great friend from SC who takes cool pictures and is a terrible snowboarder. Second is MT who is just damn hilarious and a master of MS Paint.

anchois

2006-02-28T12:46:00.000-08:00

Anchois means anchovy. I didn't know that until after I ordered my pizza today, and went and asked a French friend who also speaks English. That was my first, and last, time I will ever have an anchovy pizza. That had to be the nastiest crap I've ever had on a pizza. It tasted like someone let salmon sit out for about a month, then decided to make a pizza with it. I gave up on trying to stomach the anchovies, and tried to eat around them, but the flavor was so damn strong it contaminated the rest of the pizza. And my knife when I tried to have cheese/bread after the pizza. Now it's time for some good ole PBNJ...

It's funny how the words look similar yet sound nothing alike.

Halfway there..

2006-02-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

This Wednesday will be the halfway point of my visit to Lyon, so I thought it'd be a good time to revisit the list I made in my first post of things I want to do while I'm here. In case you forgot (for shame!), here's the list:

1. Write two more research papers, hopefully three.
2. Run 5 miles at a 8:30 pace
3. Be able to hold this position for 10 seconds
4. Find people to climb with outside
5. Snowboard in the Alps
6. Try the starting move on Realization, then go find something where I can get off the ground.
7. Update this thing daily. With a picture.

And here's where I stand on these things.

1. Research here has not gone nearly as well as I'd hoped. Pretty much everything I came here to work on does not work. At all. Regardless, I should have one paper written before going back to Madison (on results I had before coming here), and hopefully a second. But I won't be holding my breath on that.

2. This might happen, but it has to get consistently warm first. I cannot run outside when it's cold, and people that can will always be better than me. Or maybe they're more drunk than me.

3. I'm almost there on this one. I have to go into Dragonslayer mode to do it, but I can more or less get into the position now. Now it's just a matter of holding it for a while. I think my longterm goal along these lines is this.

4. Done. A guy in my office climbs, and I've met some other cool people through him. Though the French give an uncomfortable amount of slack in the rope when they lead belay. And I have seen a guy pull on a quickdraw in the gym.

5. Done.

6. This is going to be tougher. To do this, I'd have to take a train to a city about 60 miles away, then hitchhike to a nearby climbing area (apparently that's a common/safe thing to do here?). I can't see myself, with my *cough* grasp of the French language, being able to pull that off. But we'll see.

7. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha

So there I am. I'm doing OK I guess. SG comes to visit in three days, so all is good as far as I'm concerned.

It has been decreed

2006-02-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

Last night it was decreed that I should do something, since I've been mostly bored here lately. I'm not sure what I did counts as actually doing something, but I had fun. I downloaded an emulator for the super Nintendo, and played old video games all night. It was awesome. I mostly played fighting games, Mortal Kombat II, Super Street Fighter 2, and Killer Instinct, and I was a little scared to find that I remembered how to do a lot of the moves/fatalities in the games...

A scene from last night's carnage.

I keep looking at this picture, and my guy is hitting the other guy w/ a fireball. The other guy is not shooting something at my guy from his crotch, no matter how much it looks like it.

Today I finally decided to go climbing again and see if my hand was any better. It feels ok, but not great, so hopefully it won't be too bad tomorrow. I hope I can climb when SG is here. I was able to climb pretty well, though I think the ratings here are kind of soft. Or the US-to-French conversion chart I saw was wrong, but I prefer to think the ratings are soft. I mean they are French...

Comforting

2006-02-20T07:25:00.000-08:00

This is comforting. Over the weekend ducks were found dead from the H5N1 bird flu (you know, the flu that six months ago was supposed to cause Armageddon or something) near Lyon, France. That happens to be where I am for the next few (7?) weeks, and where I happen to be stuck in my apartment with a cold.

*sniffle* *cough*

workworkworkworkwork

2006-02-19T08:23:00.000-08:00

I've been without internet in my room here for about three weeks, after waking up one morning to find the wireless connection stopped reaching my room. Since I wouldn't even be able to explain what had gone wrong to someone here, I just dealt with it. I had access to an office nearby with a wired connection, which would do for a couple of months. Then, this morning, I was sitting on my bed reading when I happened to look behind my bed and see the wall connection for my room. I had looked for a wall box before, I think I had even moved the bed out of the way, and I'm not sure how this thing magically appeared this morning, but I have internet in my room again! To celebrate, I thought I'd actually update this thing.

I haven't done anything too exciting the past couple of weeks other than work, so that's another reason I haven't updated. One thing worth mentioning is that they served cow stomach for lunch the other day. It really wasn't bad, didn't have too much flavor to it, though it was a little squishy. A few weeks ago they served tongue, and I wasn't quite brave enough to try that. Next time, though!

The picture is a present a certain someone sent to me when she found out I peanut butter is worth more than gold in France, and that meant there would be a possibility of me going three months without PBnJ.

Questions

2006-02-08T10:18:00.000-08:00

"So, Rob, how's your French coming along?"

Well, I'll tell you by way of an example of the conversation I had yesterday when ordering a steak for lunch.

Lady chef: "Sir, would you like your steak cooked medium?"
Me: "French fries, please."

Snow stuff

2006-02-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

And now about the snowboarding. This place was ridiculously huge. I think the change in elevation from the summit to the base of where you can ski was around 4500 feet (Snowshoe WV's longest runs are 1200). There was a 14 km trail (or so I was told) that we did, the first half of which was hard blue to black by US ratings, so it's not like all of it just wandered back and forth at a low grade. The website of the place can be found here, and the trailmap is here.

At one point we rode through a tunnel THROUGH the ridge of the mountain and out on the other side (the run is aptly named "Le Tunnel"). Unfortunately the tunnel dropped you onto a mogul-covered slope that probably would've been a double-black diamond on the US ratings. Huge moguls, very steep, and every time you thought you were done with them, you'd come over a ridge and find another 200 yards of moguls. That part was pretty awful...but the rest of the runs were more or less perfect. Few moguls overall, well-groomed, soft snow on steep, wide trails. Everything was above the treeline, so there were no trees to worry about, only rocks, and the snow on the top half of the mountain was fantastic. The weather was perfect for riding: sunny all day with the temperature right around freezing.

It was great to get out; I don't feel like I've done any real snowboarding in a couple of years, and I was getting a little stir-crazy staying in my apartment and office all the time here. Hopefully there'll be more adventures to come...hopefully.

The better of the only two decent pictures I took is below. It's the view of the adjacent mountains from the summit, and the clouds covering the valley.

Les Alpes

2006-02-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

Today I went snowboarding in the Alps. Dear God they're huge.

But first, let me tell the story of my morning. There's a website, skimania.com, where you pay 30 euros or so, and they bus you from lyon to the mountains and give you a lift ticket for the day. Pretty sweet deal. On Monday a coworker in my office said they were going skiing this weekend, and said I should get a ticket and come along. I didn't get paid until Weds, so I waited to get the ticket. Well, they were sold out on Weds for the day they were going. Crap.

Friday rolls around, and I'm working late, and the coworker was still around (we'll call him MV for short) and said one of his friends who bought a ticket couldn't go, and asked if I wanted his ticket. Of course! Apparently, they normally give you a confirmation number, and then when you show up for the bus, you just give them the number, and your last name. For the day today, I was to be Teodore Dachev. The buses leave at 6AM, so I had to get up at 4:15, down 4 cups of coffee, then take two trains to where the buses picked us up. Well, I got on the bus, no problem. Told them the name and the number (after asking MV how to say zero), and walked right on. Unfortunately, MV and his girlfriend were on another bus. No big deal though. The bus pulls away to go pick up people at another stop, and on the way I start thinking about how I don't know anyone, nor can I communicate in any way, with anyone on this bus. So I was a little nervous.

At the next stop, some people get on, then the guy running the show makes an announcement, and I thought I heard the name Dachev in there somewhere. Then, the guy starts going person to person checking their names and numbers again. When he gets to me, I say Dachev, and he gets me to follow him. Apparently some friends (one of which speaks English) of Dachev who knew he wasnt coming saw that his name had been checked on the guy's list, and said something about it. So I had three people (guy running the show, and two of Dachev's friends) asking me if I'm Dachev. I keep insisting that I am, because at this point I have no idea where we are in Lyon, or how to get home. The two friends are insisting that I'm not him, I'm telling them I am, and me and the guy running the thing are glaring at each other when someone finally asked to see an ID. So at that point, I knew it was over, and I explained to the English speaking guy what happened, how I was a friend of MV, I knew Dachev couldn't come, so I'm here in his place, etc. Somehow, the guy had heard that an American was supposedly taking Dachev's place, and he had forgotten about it. So this reminded him, and he told the guy running the show all was good, and the whole bus (including me) had a good laugh at me.

All that by about 6:20 in the morning. Now its about 9:00PM, and I'm tired and going to bed. I'll write about the snowboarding tomorrow, but here's a picture from near the top of the mountain in the meantime.

Not much

2006-01-31T12:36:00.000-08:00

Nothing much to speak of today, as I've been preparing for a presentation I have to give tomorrow. I'm also trying to figure out exactly what I want to accomplish while I'm in Lyon, both with research and personally, and what I can afford to do. It's not going well so far, as various bills have sucked the funds dry, and my hand problems are still nagging.

Interesting geeky news over at slashdot today. Apparently google is working on their own version of Linux. No news other than that, so it's really not even certain that it'll go public, but it does look purty. I know a while ago there were stories that Google was working on Open Office, so it could very well be that they're preparing to compete with MS where MS makes most of their money. God knowns Linux could use some serious help if it will ever be used by the masses. I will give Open Office a lot of credit, though, as it has come a long way. While I still don't like it as much as MS Office, Open Office is finally good enough that (to me) it's no longer worth the effort/money to get MS's Office. My presentation tomorrow will be done in Open Office, here's hoping it doesn't fail me.

Borrrrring

2006-01-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

I'm snacking on some roasted chicken and thyme flavored potato chips right now. The French eat some weird stuff...other examples include kangaroo (yes, the jumping things with the pouches, and in cartoons they have boxing gloves) and cow tongue. I did not try either, though the kangaroo looked tasty.

This weekend was really boring. Yesterday it was cold and snowy, and I was completely unmotivated to do anything, and everything is closed on Sundays. I did go to a small climbing gym tonight, which marks the first time I've climbed in over two weeks. Hopefully my hand will still feel ok tomorrow, and if so I'll probably go again on Weds. I was really weak tonight, though I guess that's to be expected.

Next weekend I'm pretty determined to go do something cool finally. I'm hoping to go snowboarding, as it's relatively cheap. Well, cheap compared to cost in the US.

2 of 2

2006-01-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm caught up now. Last night I was invited to a dinner for the PhD students at the university here. First and foremost, last night in France, the place where you hear about how great the wine is, I was served wine out of a box. In fact there were four boxes of wine. And it was tasty.

The dinner was really cool, too. There was a long table to sit about 25 people, and there were four oven-type things spaced out along the table. Then, you took thick slices of cheese, and put them on these tiny skillets that went in the ovens, which melted the cheese. After that, you pull the cheese out, and pour it over either potatoes, ham, bacon, and various other stuff they served with it. And holy crap was it awesome. I have got to find a way to make something like that in the states...

I'm not sure what type of cheese it was, but it was the first really smelly cheese I've had. I was in that room with it for about two hours, and I never got used to the smell. I'd put the smell somewhere between a dirty hippy (JQB) and my climbing shoes. It was that bad. Not as bad as a hippy's climbing shoes, though. Somehow it still had a great taste, though.

It has been snowing all day.

Whoops

2006-01-27T10:51:00.000-08:00

It was going to happen eventually, and yesterday I finally missed updating for the day. So today I'll post twice!

-----------------------------------

Il allait se produire par la suite, et hier j'ai finalement manqué mettre à jour pour le jour. Tellement aujourd'hui je signalerai deux fois!

Day 9

2006-01-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

They are calling for snow for the next couple of days here, woohoo! Bad news on the Mt. Blanc front...I was talking to my advisor here, and I noticed his screensaver had pictures of him hiking in the Alps, so I asked him about climbing Mt. Blanc. He said the only way to do it this time of year is on skis or snowshoes, and that's gear I can't afford. Oh well...

Now I'll try translating this.

---------------------------------------

Ils appelent pour neige pour le prochain deux jours ici, woohoo! Mouvaiselles informations sur Mt. Blanc...Je parlais a mon conseiller, et j'ai noté que son screensaver a eu des images de lui trimardant dans les Alpes, ainsi je l'ai interrogé au sujet de monter Mt. Blanc. Il a dit que la seule manière de le faire cette fois d'année est sur des skis ou des raquettes, et c'est vitesse que je ne peux pas me permettre.

Maintenant j'essayerai de traduire ceci.

Je vous remercie a Bablefish...

Hell Yes

2006-01-24T13:20:00.000-08:00

Too tired to do the translation I alluded to doing yesterday, so real quick I just wanted to say that I think this is awesome. It's a letter, signed by over 10,000 clergymen, saying that they believe in evolution and that it doesn't contradict the Bible. My favorite part:

"To reject this truth or to treat it as “one theory among others” is to deliberately embrace scientific ignorance and transmit such ignorance to our children. We believe that among God’s good gifts are human minds capable of critical thought and that the failure to fully employ this gift is a rejection of the will of our Creator. To argue that God’s loving plan of salvation for humanity precludes the full employment of the God-given faculty of reason is to attempt to limit God, an act of hubris."

Now if we could just convince that halfwit in the white house that stem cell research doesn't involve harvesting fetuses en masse and human cloning...

OK, off to play some Neverwinter Nights then sleep.

Already out of titles: Day 7

2006-01-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

Well the 2nd bottle of wine isn't as good as the first. Mayhap $4 is the crossover point between great and not-great wine. Today I left work early so I could do some work on my computer in the room, and so I could stop by a mall on my way home. Funny how French malls are just about as annoying as American ones...but they did have a store that sold climbing gear, and for the French that includes harnesses, caribiners, and quickdraws. There were like two stoppers and cams, but not much for real gear. They did sell mountaineering boots, and they had a pair of Asolo's I'm interested in, but I don't have the money this month. I'ma look for another store first, I was told there's another climbing store in town. This first place didn't have crampons, which would be the last piece of the puzzle to make this climb of Mt. Blanc actually happen...and being able to afford all this junk.

That's all I've got today. I'm sick of not knowing French, but at this point I'm not sure I can teach myself.

Another picture from Saturday's walk:

Mmmmmm, mmmmmm bitch!

2006-01-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Today I had my first banana. I am 26 (and 1 quarter) years old. I've never been able to get past the awful smell, and I've had banana flavored things before, but never an actual banana. And I have to say, they really screw it up when they make banana flavored things. Bananas aren't great by themselves, but man banana flavored stuff really sucks in comparison.

I also went for a long run along the Rhone, where there was a park that had a ton of people in it. It was pretty cool; there were kids playing everywhere, a skatepark that had people of all ages in it falling over themselves, and a bunch of soccer games. Later I took a train downtown to find a store that sold climbing gear, and I found it, but like every damn thing else that isn't a restaurant, it was closed.

This is a picture from inside the cathedral from yesterday.

Wandering

2006-01-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

Today, the roomie and I took off to walk around Lyon and see what we could see. We finally found some parts of town that don't suck, so that was nice. We also ran into a wine festival, and we walked to the Catedral St. Jean, shown below. It's the one on top of the hill.

The view from the base of the cathedral was pretty nice; you could see pretty much all of Lyon. Supposedly on a clear day you can see Mt. Blanc (which I haven't given up on climbing yet...Im going to look for a place that sells boots tomorrow).

Didn't get much else accomplished today other than a long nap. I have some work stuff I should be doing, but...meh...hopefully I'll feel more motivated tomorrow.

Cliche French stuffs

2006-01-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

For dinner this evening I had (hard) bread with some good cheese, really good wine that I just bought, and chocolate mousse. Not much of a dinner, I know, but I've been having big lunches. The wine is fantastic, and it only cost about $4. I don't know what has gone wrong in the states that shitty wine is $10 (Boone's doesn't count), but someone really ought to fix that.

I walked down to the Rhone this evening to find places to go running. Other than the smell of gasoline, it was nice. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so tomorrow there will be two pictures. That's right, baby, two. Giggity.

And I sign off with a quote I found on a website:
"In France, a publicly accessible climbing area without bolted lines is viewed like a publicly accessable swimming pool with sharks in it." — David Kastrup.

Tired. Again.

2006-01-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

Last night's post is below. Once again blogger was being stupid.

I'm finding it tough to be productive at work so far, but I guess it's only been a couple of days. I'm still kind of unsure what it was that I had to leave Madison to do, but hopefully that will be obvious in due time. I found out today that a guy in my office climbs, so once my hand feels better that'll be awesome to have people to climb with.

Don't feel like writing much else, so I'm going to bed. Here's my picture for tonight. Sure doesn't look like a city with a 7 digit population, does it?

Ahh, sleep

2006-01-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

Day two, and I already regret promising I'd update each day. Not much to talk about. Today I was shown the campus where I'll be working, which is a 25 minute metro ride away, and I have to cover the cost of the metro tickets. That wouldn't be an issue if the dollar weren't so damn worthless over here. Before I left I said I was going to live on beans and rice, and it looks like I just might have to stick to that. I'll have to find a way to work some hot sauce in there somewhere...

Anyhow, I have a desk, and a shiny new computer with a French keyboard attached to it. That wouldn't be much of a problem if the enter key weren't all funny shaped, and the key that's supposed to be above it is now to the left of it, and my left-shift key is pintsized. And of course when I make a typo, I look down at the keyboard and see nothing but c's with squiggles under them and e's with accents. Damn them. Damn them all. Another odd tidbit about my computer is that it has FreeBSD for an operating system. It might be difficult to imagine, but its an OS that's pretty much more annoying than Linux. Hopefully I'll get used to it.

Instead of a picture of the day, I leave with a French phrase of the day:
Fr: Je suis desole, mais je ne parles pas francais (accents omitted)
En: I'm sorry, but I do not speak French.

I made it

2006-01-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

For some reason I could not publish last night, but here is what I wrote:

Three flights and a bunch of hours later, I made it to Lyon. My initial impressions of Lyon are not that great, but I'm trying to reserve judgement for a day when I'm not a jetlagged, walking zombie. And so this is the view out my bedroom window, and now I'm going home to bed.

Bags are packed

2006-01-16T05:47:00.000-08:00

Today is the day I leave for France for three months. I have a lot of mixed feelings about going because things have been so damn good in Madison here lately. Work has been great (finally), I was climbing fairly well until I hurt my hand (again), life with SG has been awesome, and I'm hesitant to leave all that behind. Plus, I don't speak French. At all.

But, then again, I'm going to France for three months. Once my hand is better, I'll be near some amazing climbing, and it should be interesting to work with the professor I'm going to meet. SG is coming to wander France with me sometime in early March, and I'm sure I'll be missing her like crazy by then. I had a bunch of climbing goals I was hoping to meet while in Lyon, but they may be put on hold. I wanted to climb Mt. Blanc, but the boots I tried to pro-deal were on backorder, so I'm bootless and cramponless. I was also hoping to climb in their gym a lot to get strong for the upcoming season, but the aforementioned hand injury will put that on hold for a couple weeks. Then I'll start preparing to kick ass this season (I will clean 5.12, dammit!).

So with all that in mind, my goals while I'm there:
- Write two more research papers, hopefully three.
- Run 5 miles at a 8:30 pace
- Be able to hold this position for 10 seconds
- Find people to climb with outside
- Snowboard in the Alps
- Try the starting move on Realization, then go find something where I can get off the ground.
- Update this thing daily. With a picture.

So that's all I can think of right now, and with that I'm off to make pancakes for SG before I leave. Next update will be after I have internet access in Lyon.

30 something

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anchois

Halfway there..

Hiccup