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Long time, no see...
Yes, I'm still alive. I've been having a fight to the death with a pair of term papers as the Fall 2009 semester concludes, and I've willfully neglected most things--including writing here--until their conclusion. One paper has been vanquished and the other is on the ropes, but it's putting up a struggle and the deadline is twenty hours away. A little more processing, a little more writing... and then I'm free for a month, before it starts again. I keep alternating between grumbling about this last paper and paraphrasing the Little Engine That Could. "I know I can do this, I know I can do this..." Class and papers are harder when you pursue them alongside a technically-demanding 40-hour work week.
Hooray for birthday time! I've received the standard flood of well-wishes on Facebook, but I like to post an entry here to mark the occasion as well. This is a big one: the quarter-century mark!
Courtney baked me an apple pie and put a single candle on it. We've decided this single candle represents twenty-five years. My goal is to gain at least two or three more on my pies.
Back to paper writing. Goodnight, all!Current Mood:  tired What I'm hearing:: Sallah the cat, kneading a jacket |
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Another long-delayed entry. They happen sometimes.
I took a trip to Albany last weekend with Courtney to visit Stacy. She's doing pretty well, on track to finish up a BS in Biology in the spring. We basically just hung out, visiting the local malls for different things and watching the new Star Trek movie. She actually liked it, which I think is a first.
The trip to Albany took about nine hours, though Google Maps predicted six or seven hours. Of course, most of the trip was smooth sailing... but silly me, I should have expected that it would be remarkably difficult to leave the DC area by way of major highways on a Friday night rush hour. Two hours to get out of DC? That was aggravating.
Oh, by the way, New Jersey? Expensive and lame. What's up with the full service gas pumping and expensive Burger King food? I can pump my own gas. Grumble.
I took Friday off from class and work not only to drive to Albany, but to work on term paper stuff as well. Now, I didn't actually get much writing done--though I did do some--but I was productive in other ways. I went and perused some of the data I collected for one class with my other class' professor, I returned the instrument that I borrowed, and I talked with yet another professor, asking him to be my thesis advisor. He accepted, and we talked a bit about plans for research and how best to finish up this particular degree. I'm looking at wrapping up the MS in the next year or two... we'll see how that goes.
I return to work tomorrow morning after four relaxing days off. Courtney's family came down for Thanksgiving as is now the tradition, and we visited local wineries and Mt. Vernon over the course of their stay. Courtney & her mom both roped sister Kendall into seeing this year's "Twilight" movie... another tradition in the making. Food prep went smoothly, with Courtney carrying the brunt of the effort by kitchen design and by preference. The apple and pumpkin pies were first to be finished, of course, and the last of the easily-edible turkey leftovers were dispatched via sandwiches this very evening. (Leftover bits for stock & turkey soup, however, are still quite available.)
So yes, that was a quick catch-up on some of my goings-on. We've got a company holiday party to attend on Thursday evening, still working on those two term papers (due in about two weeks, give or take)... yep, it's almost December. Even though I was out and about today in short shirtsleeves, I changed my desktop background to my favorite winter picture from home: the winter storm to the south at sunset.
So continues the descent of the temperatures, and the long slide back into winter. :-)
 Current Mood:  pleasant What I'm hearing:: Courtney playing games on the other laptop |
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If you were under the mistaken impression that I had inadvertently fallen down a well, disappearing from the world above, I would forgive you.
After all, it would be understandable. I haven't written in something like two weeks, busy hopping about and trying to make progress on this and that and such like. I have composed a rough outline of my recent activities to share...
EARLY OCTOBER: I started investing in stocks and bonds. A little bit here, a little bit there... add some time, dividends, and luck, and we'll see where I end up.
HALLOWEEN: Went to a party... Courtney & I dressed in Star Trek uniforms (new movie style). We met some very, very cool geeks, and Courtney was a bit flattered by one of the attendees. :-) I think we'll be hanging out again soon, if we can find an open weekend not beset upon by too many holidays, visitors, or papers.
EARLY NOVEMBER: Fumbled around with trying to get ahold of an HSI instrument to make measurements for one of my term papers; my professor wasn't a whole lot of help for a good long while. (I eventually picked it up two Fridays ago.) I passed the non-work time with occasional sessions of 8-bit Final Fantasy on the Wii. Additionally, engagement pictures were posted online.
LAST WEEK:
Wednesday: Worked for 8 hours; went home, wrote a 500-word summary of my other term paper; went to GMU for the kickoff meeting of the new student chapter of ASPRS, where I became their founding secretary. (I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.) I then attended my Remote Sensing class and came home around 10:30pm or so.
Thursday: Worked for 12.5 hours, the final four of which were spent with a very slow computer tech. However, upon my return home, I was promptly urged by Courtney to try on my brand new wedding band, which had arrived in the mail that very day... titanium and muonionalusta meteorite, fitted perfectly. AWESOME.
Friday the 13th: Worked for 4.5 hours. Doodled around during the afternoon, went to GMU for my HSI class... where naturally, we talked some more about LIDAR (briefly). Go figure.
Saturday: Went to the first meeting with Courtney & the priest for pre-marriage prep. That went well; the guy's a fellow geek, and we had some interesting conversations. I took the HSI instrument to GMU and met with a professor and his research coworkers to make some measurements... but we were eventually stymied by the drizzly weather. After returning home for a breather, Courtney & I headed over to Mike & Julie's new house, where we helped paint, sand, drink beer, and eat way too much Pizza Hut stuffed crust pizza.
Sunday: Beautiful day. Slept in late, upgraded the RAM on the old Windows laptop (for data processing improvement purposes), then took the HSI instrument out to Bluemont Vineyards. After a false start or two with our setup, we asked the proprietors for the loan of a power outlet; they said sure, so I got some very sweet imagery of the horizon that will likely be the core of my term paper. It helps to know the management. :-) A glass of Traminette later, we headed home for our Sunday night routine of online dice-rolling with friends.
That brings us up to today... not much of note today, unless you count as significant my borrowing from the library a children's book called "How to Scratch a Wombat." (I liked the title.) Oh, I also watched the Atlantis shuttle launch while at work, too. I've really got to get cracking on geting my data in order for study and dissemination... but it's late, and at this point I'd be better served by going to bed. The evenings will be when I'll need to do my work; we're going to Albany this weekend to visit Stacy, and the following weekend we'll be host to Courtney's family for Thanksgiving. No class next week, though... that will be nice.
Happy birthday, Grandma H! Epic Leonid meteor shower starts tonight! Goodnight, world!Current Mood:  silly What I'm hearing:: tick tock tick tock tick tock it's a clock |
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October 31st... time to keep the annual tradition, and post my Three Scary Things!
1. The cold from which I'm recovering. Yesterday I actually felt vaguely human, and today I actually feel like eventually going out to do things... which is good, because we have a costume party to attend tonight. (Costume pictures tomorrow-ish.) However, there were about three days where things were downright awful. Tuesday was rough because it was the first really bad day for the cold; Wednesday was rough because it was just as bad as Tuesday, and I knew that it wasn't over yet... plus I had class that night, which made for a very long day (even though I left halfway through). Thursday was rough because I coughed all day, and felt half-dead all night. The volumes of phlegm I coughed up Friday morning can only be described as "disturbing." Today is going well, though... I may take a short nap prior to our departure, and I'll take it easy tonight, but I do feel well enough to be sociable, even if my voice sounds like a mix of Mr. Movie Trailer and Barry White. Yes, I will continue to wash my hands like a maniac and cover my mouth if & when I cough.
2. The financial system, and the popular mentality toward it. Let us consider the word "bailout." The origin of the term is a description of a process, wherein water leaking into a sinking boat is thrown out via bucket as fast as possible. It does nothing to stop the leak; it is a treatment, not a cure. Later, the term became synonymous with escaping from a plane that was too damaged or out-of-control to fly. Even later, the term became common for situations where someone escapes a situation or location in a tactical sense, though not explicitly changing the strategy that caused them to arrive there in the first place. Now we have "bailouts" that make our national debt increase on the order of billions to trillions of dollars, with pittances for accountability and zero realistic expectation of ever seeing the money return. If someone's personal investor made such a decision, you would fire them for gross incompetence; when it is federal policy, it is touted by many as a sound approach to our current economic state. Look at the news, and it says that the recession is ending and we're starting to recover. Why? Because they said so. Emotion and fear are driving the country, while reason and rationality appear to have skipped town. (Maybe I'm just young and naive, and it's really always been this way.) What do I do about it? Damned if I know, or if anybody else does, either.
3. Electromagnetic pulses. Release a huge amount of electromagnetic radiation in a powerful magnetic field, and watch most contemporary electronic devices fry. The United States--and likely most other modern nations as well--are dangerously susceptible to the risk of electromagnetic pulses and geomagnetic storms. "So what if it pops some transistors and burns some chips?" you may ask; "we can just replace them, right?" Not so easy if everyone else is doing the same thing... plus, we don't exactly have a full-sized spare national electrical grid on hand. Add to that the fact that we as a society are not currently capable of surviving very long without electricity--food refrigeration, medical care, communications, major populations in cities that need food and water--and things could go very bad very quickly. After all, do you really want to consciously realize that your pet cats would likely eat you, then set up their own iron-fisted (or iron-pawed) totalitarian commune or roving band of marauders before you could do the same to them? I didn't think so. Even worse, this is written on a blog; if it comes true, I don't even get the benefit of an "I told you so." :-P
Oh well. Can't live life in complete, abject fear! Gotta make plans, gotta make hay while the sun is shining, gotta pick up a Springfield M6 Scout for the backpack on the long hike out of the city into the mountains.
Seriously, though... I hope everyone has a fun, safe Halloween! :-)Current Mood:  geeky |
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There... a nice, attention-grabbing title. :-)
There's actually two problems with my fiancee. The first problem is that she caught a cold, and passed it along to me. Truthfully, though, I brought this upon myself, of course, but I have to share the credit with her for being so gracious and kind.
We don't typically blame each other for things; it leads to too much frustration and aggravation. "I blame you for not changing the litter box," "I blame you for not remembering the tickets for the wine tasting," et cetera. What we've mutually decided upon in most cases is to instead "give each other the credit." It lightens the spirit of things while still getting the point across: "I give you the credit for not emptying the dishwasher," "I give you the credit for trapping the cat in the air conditioner," and so forth. It usually works! Thus, she and I shall share credit for my cold.
The real problem with my fiancee, however, is just that: the word "fiancee" (and its male counterpart "fiance"). It's just so pretentious, so hoity-toity and nose-up-in-the-air-behold-my-nostrils, so upper crust when we're currently more comfortable in the warm, spongy innards of the bread loaf of life.
What to use instead, though? My "betrothed?" Hold on, let me take out my monocle. My "girlfriend?" Technically true, but it just doesn't carry the same weight, the appropriate reflection on the choice we've made... you know, when those hordes of women are accosting me every morning when I try to head out to my car. My "future wife?" I actually use this one as a term of endearment sometimes, and it's usually returned with "future husband" and a delightful smile. However, that one is more personal, not really so much for use around others as ourselves. It also has the delightfully amusing quality of harking to one of our shared favorite MST3k episodes, "MST3k s10e04: Future War"... but I think the amusing-and-not-foreboding association might be lost in mixed company (geek & non-geek).
What, then, do I use as an appropriate term to describe her status and relationship to me? "Ball-and-chain?" "The wind beneath my wings?" "The better half?" They're all so dated and cliche (though I think I know someone who might vote for that last one...). I welcome any suggestions for alternate terms that might be suitable... or funny yet inappropriate. This has been bugging me for a while, after all, ever since Courtney first mentioned that the term bothered her...
I give Courtney the credit for this one. :-)Current Mood:  sick What I'm hearing:: assorted classical, mostly Tchaikovsky by London Symphony Orchestra |
| » Paper Trail |
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I broke my personal rule and went more than a week without posting. The main reason has been a perceived lack of time due to work and class requirements, though I've hardly been inactive on the social front.
A brief social rundown: went apple picking a few weeks ago, had dinner & drinks with friends a few times, purchased a wedding band for Courtney, saw Wayne Brady perform at the Patriot Center (for $10!), and went to the pistol range with friends last night, where I tried shooting my friend's new AR-15 at a paper zombie target. (Courtney & I are holding onto our own bullet-riddled zombie target as a decoration for an upcoming Halloween party.) We also went to Bluemont Vineyards on Monday afternoon for engagement pictures. The weather was extremely rainy all weekend, but the skies were perfectly clear that afternoon... not a bad way to spend a Monday. :-) We had a good time.
Work has been fairly busy lately, and I occasionally have to stay late. The hours typically work themselves out by the end of the week, when I leave early to go to class. There's varying degrees of frustrations and stress there, but nothing insurmountable.
It's currently the middle of the semester at George Mason University, so that means midterm exams. I've been halfheartedly plodding through a take-home midterm since Friday... well, that's not exactly fair to myself; I did most of the work on Saturday, and I've been slowly typing up the answers from my notebook.
I took an in-class midterm tonight. Traffic was heavy, and I actually got to class about five minutes after the exam had started. I think I was still the first one in the class done with the test, though, and I left for home about an hour after arriving on campus. This was even after slowly pondering through the handful of questions I didn't immediately answer the first time through the exam; the class has been mostly review so far, and I could probably have gotten through the test without any class sessions. The professor is a singularly cool individual, though, so I'll say that the class has been worth it.
Next up on the docket are the research papers. I have two term papers to write--one for each class--and a conference paper to which I must contribute. The latter is due for submission at the very end of November, meaning that the review by my company for proprietary info and the like pushes our "due date" a week or so earlier... so the clock is ticking.
The other two papers are due about a week or two later. I've been trying to run down details on the loan of a hyperspectral imager owned by the university, but I've had very little luck, even when advising the professor of my issues. I'd like to use the instrument to make some measurements of vegetation and manmade surfaces on campus for my term paper. The professor is pleased with the concept, but nobody's responding to my emails and the semester's halfway over. I even talked to one of the email recipients in class, and told him I was sending him an email requesting information. He said he'd send it that night... nope. PROTIP: when your term paper requires measurements of live vegetation, it's best to collect those measurements prior to the onset of winter, when most of the vegetation is dormant or dead.
The second term paper is fairly straightforward; I just need to make some progress on it. I'll likely spend Saturday downloading data from EarthExplorer, and purchasing a nice, big, portable external hard drive to keep it on.
For now, though, I've got to get to bed. Before I do, however, a parting question of the trigonometric kind: I can figure out how to handle calculations using inverse secant and secant squared... but how the heck do I handle inverse secant squared? I suspect that it is either impossible, or I have some sort of brain disconnect that will not be repaired until I hunt down the professor after the hyperspectral take-home midterm is turned in.
One thing's for certain: lack of sleep causes worse brain disconnects. Goodnight, all!
Oct. 21st, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
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| » Adventures in Science |
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About three years ago--at the start of "Adventure Weekend"--I met the co-inventor of the charge-coupled device (CCD), Dr. George Smith. Turns out he's sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics this year for that very achievement. His picture from three years ago is almost identical to the one on the Nobel Prize page... it's nearly creepy.
A question: am I now allowed to say I've met a Nobel laureate? I met him after the research, but before the awarding of the Prize. (Maybe I should win my own Nobel for this new discovery: temporal semantics.)
A month ago, I listened to an audiobook on Spirit & Opportunity, the two Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) launched in 2005 to explore our ruddy neighbor. The book, Roving Mars, was written by the mission's principal investigator, Dr. Steve Squyres, a professor at Cornell. I thought it was a pretty neat look at what goes into the development of interplanetary missions and the world of spacecraft construction. A lot of my training and academic research has been geared toward Earth observation... but I have to admit, being a lifelong space nut, the book did spark a bit of an interest in exploring astronomical bodies. Maybe that's what I can do with my career, to bridge the gap between the tech fellowship and becoming a professor. ;-)
The main thrust of the MER mission was to explore Martian geology for hints of water in the planet's past. To the delight and fascination of many researchers, a great deal of evidence supporting the possibility has been discovered during the mission and subsequent ventures. A bit of luck back in the late 1970s, though, and we'd have found ice far sooner: the Viking 2 lander missed water ice by about four inches because it didn't dig quite deep enough. The mission was hardly a failure... but to realize years later that we were so close...
Water is also the motivation behind the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. Tomorrow morning around 7:30am EDT, the upper stage of the satellite's launching rocket will strike a crater near the Lunar South Pole. The satellite will scan the resulting plume and make measurements while it flies through, impacting on the surface as well about four minutes later... creating another plume for viewing from Earth. Unless you've got a 10" diameter telescope or larger, though, you're better off watching the event live on NASA TV streaming online or via your cable provider. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) thelunarsociety link)
Not to be outdone by American accomplishments on the Moon and Mars, the Russians are apparently contemplating a return to Venus. Now that would be an intense mission... all that money, all that work, just so you can collect a day's worth of data before your spacecraft melts.
For those wishing to stick closer to home, there's today's launch of WorldView-2 by DigitalGlobe, notable for its high resolution panchromatic and multispectral imaging capabilities and frequent rate of revisit. If you want to keep it cheap, though, you could always do what some MIT students did and hook a camera to a weather balloon, obtaining images from a 20 mile altitude for about $150.
Alternatively, you could just get wacky. Craigslist is always good for some surprises.
Well, I'd better get to bed. I'll probably be slightly late to work tomorrow morning because of the LCROSS broadcast, unless I go to work early and watch it there... but why do that? Then I wouldn't be able to test out my brand-new "jetpack." Night, folks!
Oct. 8th, 2009 @ 10:45 pm
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| » Milestones & Mapping the Future |
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My 600th entry... time for something profound.
A friend of mine once looked at the user pic for this entry, and said it was a pretty good expression of my personality at times: very intense and focused. While living in Riverknoll at RIT, another friend once told me, to my surprise, that I was the most organized person they knew.
"Are you kidding me?" I asked. "Have you seen the mess surrounding us in the living room right now?"
"Well, yeah, you're messy, but when you decide to do something, you figure out exactly how to get from point A to point B."
Another person once left me an anonymous remark: "You are so ARROGANT... but some might just call it confident." I intend to discuss this and related topics soon.
For now, let's take a look at some recent milestones and future plans.
Recent Milestones:
My car's mileage passed the 50,000 mile mark in August. That's over 25,000 miles driven since December 2007. Those trips back-and-forth to Rochester and other points north tend to add up.
Since starting my job in September 2007, my pre-tax salary has increased by almost 20%. Now if only I could hold onto more of what goes into taxes...
At the conclusion of this semester, I'll be at 12 of 30 credits required for my master's degree. I'm hoping to wrap that up sometime in 2012. In the near term, though, midterms are only a few weeks away. I expect little difficulty, and hope to continue my current streak of 4.0 semester averages.
Indy & Sallah turned two years old over the weekend. I'm told that's approximately 24 in cat years. I've told them to get jobs. Do they listen? No, of course not.
Future Plans:
As of right now, the wedding is 235 days away. Planning slowly continues.
Courtney & I often talk of purchasing a house. Our lease on the apartment will be up for renewal next July (I think). Given our current rates of savings, we're about a year away from a reasonable down payment. Unfortunately, halfway-decent houses in our current, locationally-favorable area are pricey when compared to those elsewhere in the country. The sum saved may not be a full 20%--maybe closer to 10%--but it's still reasonably better than paying a monthly amount to a landlord, isn't it? I go back and forth on this one... yes, we'll be in DC for a few more years, but is it prudent to buy a house here when we know we won't stay in DC forever? Do we really want a townhouse? Would we rather give ourselves longer commutes instead, just to have a bit of yard?
I'm debating about continuing my formal graduate education after my MS and pursuing my PhD. At George Mason University, the program I'm considering would be an additional 42 credits, 24 of which would be for the dissertation. Anticipated completion would be likely sometime around 2015, making me a 30 year old with a PhD and nearly ten years of remote sensing experience. Not a bad position to be in, but do I want to take classes for that long? Five more years... depending on how you look at it, it's either a very long time or a very short one. We might even have a kid before then, who knows? There's a lot that could happen family-wise between now and then that could alter those plans. (I'm committed to the MS, though.)
Work is reimbursing me for grad school. By my current projections, my undergraduate student loans should be paid off by 2015, while my car should be paid off sometime in 2012.
Professionally, I'm likely going to stay on my contract in Herndon for another few years. At some point, there's a tech fellowship that I'd like to pursue. Toward the end of my professional career, I'm contemplating the possibility of becoming a professor. That would definitely require me to have my PhD in hand, likely with a lengthy list of publications to go with it. That reminds me: abstract for paper #2 has been accepted. This is going to be a very writing-active next six to eight weeks...
I want to be a millionaire. I haven't figured out yet how long it will take me to get there, though... but it might not hurt to live in a place with a lower cost-of-living, either.
I'm sure there's more, but that's all I have off the top of my head. I often take a bit of time each day to tweak the plans, and to evaluate what I've done to move them forward. I like to make sure that every day, I can have at least some answer to the question, "what have I done to improve my lot in life today?"
I suppose I'd better rest up and get some sleep. This life isn't going to live itself, after all.
Goodnight, folks. May your dreams be awesome.
Oct. 6th, 2009 @ 11:17 pm
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| » The Reality of Wedding Gift Registries |
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Courtney & I went out and about today on some errands, and stopped by Target to work on starting a gift registry there. We have one at Bed, Bath & Beyond already, but we figure it doesn't hurt to diversify a little.
The sweet thing about doing wedding registries at Target is that they give you a laser scanner and turn you loose in the store.
Today I learned something about turning a couple loose in the store with what essentially looks like a phaser. After the impulse to blast everything in sight started to wear off--"I'm sorry madam, I didn't mean to temporarily blind your child... twice... at point-blank range..."--it quickly became apparent that the tastes of males and females in this situation are exceptionally different.
For example, the female will likely use the scanner to log requests for boring, domestic items, such as:
- queen-sized sheets
- a hairdryer
- a bookshelf
- a vacuum cleaner
Meanwhile, the male will likely use the very same scanner to add fascinating, useful items, such as:
- a Lego Indiana Jones set (featuring the flying wing plane from the first movie)
- a 30" tall, 70 light robotic Christmas flamingo
- matches (for burning things)
- a hex key set
I can't stop giggling like a moron. I like this wedding registry stuff.
I'm also proud to say that the hex keys didn't get deleted from the actual list.
Sep. 26th, 2009 @ 02:12 pm
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| » In Obscurum, Verum |
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This time, the lights are on.
For neither the first nor the last time, I should have heeded Courtney's suggestion. I took several breaks while writing the previous entry, at the end of one of which Courtney suggested I check to make sure I hadn't accidentally changed the focus of the cursor away from the text file where I had been writing.
"No," I said. "It's a faith thing. It's a writing experiment." I guess we know how that one turned out, hmm?
I rambled on for a while in my writing, as I recall; even so, I think that this is an experiment I shall try again someday. There's something raw about it, something intensely personal; the only place I can see what I've written is in my head, so it's much more difficult to edit things on the fly. The result is that I write faster and further than normal. Typos stand on their own and the phrasings of sentences are in their nascent form; you get the raw feed direct from the mind of the author. You can learn something about a person that way. I like.
If I could get that cursor issue licked--it's an annoyance of my Macbook Pro that my palm sometimes hits the touchpad and redirects me--then I suspect that maybe I could stand an actual chance of defeating NaNoWriMo someday. Not this year, though... I'll let grad school reign in November this year.
There was an observation, though, that was lost to the ether that I feel deserves to be recorded. Here goes:
While laying on the floor after Indy leapt up to the chair, I sat there watching him. He watched me in turn, sitting upright. Every few seconds his head would point in one direction, though, then another, darting to view one invisible nothing, then another.
I thought about the darkness, the minimal presence of photons, and the monochromatic tendencies of human vision in low light... we see everything in black and white, or rather shades of gray. I thought about the blue glow of the apartment due to the nightlight in the bathroom, and how it compared to the garish orange nighttime perma-haze of the dorms and apartments of RIT.
I thought about a camera on a tripod, pointed at the cat on the chair, its shutter and aperture open at the appropriate lengths of time and distance to produce a well-exposed image. The chair and the wall would be in focus, but not the cat; he would be blurred, his motions and movements disturbing his image.
He leapt back down from the chair and sharpened his claws on the scratch pad next to me. How would that look in the image?
The material things would appear still, while the living things would be blurred. The living things are moving; the living things are transient. Life is transient.
That's what makes it beautiful.
There was more to the writing after this point, but that's what I wanted to get down and share. Thanks. Goodnight.
Sep. 24th, 2009 @ 09:52 pm
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| » A Shot in the Dark |
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It's eight thirty as I write this, and the apartment is dark.
Well, not quite totally dark.
The apartment is in its nighttime state, a sort of perpetual twilight od or dusk, with just enough light to see remarkably well, once your eyes have adjusted.
I sit here typing in the dark, screen backlighting and keyboard highlights off. A pair of curious cats walk and bob curiously around me, sitting down at a respectful three feet away to keep me company in their own way.
I sat on the floor on the other side of the room with them a little while ago, the room just as dark as it is now... perhaps a little darker, since that side of the apartment is away from the windows.
I lay on the floor next to a shoebox. The cats love boxes, including shoeboxes. Indy walked around the box tentatively for a moment after Sallah left it, then leaptup to the chair. In the darkness, his leap upward and away from me was like the fabric of space bending before my eyes, a black spot stretching and warping from one place in front of me to a large part of my field of vision, only to contract again in front of me in a different spot.
Currently that black spot is sitting to my left, by the fireplace, head on his paws, a look of sleepiness or quiet boredom on his face. I think I might be in his domain now, interrupting his time of dominance. Cats are nocturnal animals, or at least more so than we, and I am impinging upon his natural rights by simply sitting here. I'm spoiling his fun and preventing the mayhem that takes place in the living room after hours, when the big bipeds have gone to bed.
Courtney , one of the bipeds, actually already has gone to bed. We both had really long days, hers from pilates and mine from work. We both lay in the darkness sharing the details of the day, trying not to fall asleep. Finally, she decided to relent. The other biped
Sep. 24th, 2009 @ 09:20 pm
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| » Survival is Victory |
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Yesterday at work I wrote a little note to myself and stuck it to the bottom of my computer monitor. A year or two ago, a similar note said "Make Something Happen."
The new one says, "Survival is Victory."
Work has gone from somewhat dull & quiet to hectic & busy, as I'm covering someone's duties while they're on vacation. These are duties I would not normally perform--lots of meeting and resource scheduling--so I've spent the past week or two training up on the nuances of the task. It's starting to gel for me, but it also still takes up a fairly significant chunk of the day.
It makes the day go by a little faster, and I know I'm earning significant brownie points with lots of folks at work. Besides, it's only for a week, so it's not too bad.
Today I met a new person I'll likely be interacting with fairly often at work. I haven't decided if I like him or dislike him yet. He's got quite a bit of pertinent experience, but I suspect his science may be lacking. His views on some business aspects of the industry are very different from my existing understanding, though that might also be chalked up to seniority, experience, and a different vantage point. He also has some familiarity with my old contract, and he made a very brief but highly disparaging comment about my previous area of work.
Out of all the things, this bothered me the most. It's like making fun of your sibling; it's one thing for you to do it to them yourself, but quite another for a stranger to do it.
Oh well. As I try to remind myself often, I'm not being paid to do easy things.
In other news, class so far this semester is so-so. My Wednesday night class is almost all review for me, though the professor is very good. My Friday evening class, though, is starting to get into new material for me... too bad the professor is a dull presenter and a space cadet.
At least the assignments won't be too bad. One in-class midterm, one take-home midterm, and two term papers with presentations, sprinkled with occasional homework. I'm going to do some pondering this weekend to determine if and how I can shoehorn the assignments to fit some of the extracurricular work my coauthors & I are pursuing.
Time to catch up on some sleep, and recharge over the weekend. Night, folks.
Sep. 18th, 2009 @ 09:20 pm
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| » Wedding Planning Progress! |
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Courtney & I have made our decision regarding the scheduling dilemma from the previous wedding prep post... we're going with the reception hall we prefer, selection "A."
Actually, in the past fifty days or so, we've made a fair amount of progress toward preparations for the big day. With 259 days remaining, I think we're actually in pretty good straits. Here's what's been done so far:
-church reserved
-reception hall reserved
-wedding photographer booked
-DJ booked
-wedding dress purchased (and before you even think to ask, NO I HAVE NOT SEEN THE DAMN WEDDING DRESS OKAY STOP ASKING ALREADY)
-bridesmaid dress selection commencement
-wedding hairdresser selected (my stepmom!)
-wedding registry halfway complete
-honeymoon destination selected: Ireland!
Remaining on the list for completion are such objectives as:
-selecting a limousine service (though I've canvassed on the topic a bit in the roch_ny community)
-selecting a cake maker (see above link)
-selecting invitations (to be handled by Mom!)
-flowers (Wegmans?)
-videographer (dare I?)
-engagement photographer
-tuxedos
...and probably a whole list of other things that I'm forgetting. Courtney's already plotting and planning the bridal shower stuff for early February--which already had some other stuff tentatively scheduled, but what can you do?--and I really need to pick out a limo and supply some details and notes requested by Steph, Dave, and company for their bachelor party planning.
I suppose I know what I'm doing this weekend, apart from wine-drinking, textbook-reading, abstract-writing, and dice-rolling! :-)
Oh, and also very neat: we've been wedding band shopping. Courtney has hers picked out, I think, and I daresay that she found me a simply fantastic one of my own. That's right, sports fans: it is a ring made out of a century-old meteorite and titanium.
It just... works. I've already talked on the phone twice with the responsible artisan for further details. The order will likely go in next week. :-)
Sep. 11th, 2009 @ 10:08 pm
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| » Latin Luck |
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The Romans considered the number three lucky. Because the number nine can be thought of as "three threes," nines were considered an even more auspicious number.
I wonder how a Roman would have felt about 9/9/09? That's three sets of three sets of threes!
I bet they'd think it was awesome. That, or exceptionally confusing, since the root of the word "September" is Latin for "seven," much like the remaining months in the year contain roots for the numbers eight through ten. The Caesars would probably dig it, though... especially Julius and Augustus.
In other news, a coworker unexpectedly fell ill and passed away over the weekend. On a happier note, classes are going well, and I find out tomorrow just what the percentage of my unexpected mid-year performance adjustment (read: raise) will be.
Sep. 10th, 2009 @ 07:16 pm
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| » Wine Some More |
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Courtney & I went up to Rochester this weekend for baby Matthew's baptism. We took Monday off so that we could return to Virginia at a more leisurely pace. Taking advantage of the extra time, we stopped at Great Western Winery to pick up some more bottles of a delicious chocolate-flavored wine we tried in Watkins Glen in July.
The expansively large tasting bar was empty when we sauntered over from the winery's mini-museum. The young man who would serve us asked us each to pick out five wines to taste. We struck up some small talk.
"Some of my friends go to RIT," he said, noticing the lanyard for my keys.
"Oh, are any majoring in Imaging Science?" I asked.
"No, none of them are studying art," he replied.
He turned away to fetch the next bottle of wine while Courtney quietly patted my slowly clenching fist.
Unwitting insult aside, he did wind up receiving a tip for the free (!) tasting. It helped that he poured a lot more than just five wines. I also picked up a case to bring home.
It's good wine.
Sep. 2nd, 2009 @ 05:50 pm
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| » The Games We Play |
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Shhhh! Don't tell anyone... but I'm a bit of a geek.
I'm a bit odd when it comes to playing different sorts of games. This oddity varies with the sort of game, of course. In board and card games, I'm typically very competitive... except Monopoly, which I don't really enjoy much. I'm up for the occasional drinking game, depending on my current state of inebriation. In computer and console games, I typically enjoy multiplayer experiences, like LAN parties, where you can keep playing and swear vociferously at your friends without needing to stop and type in chat, subsequently getting killed or losing. (What do you mean that people use headsets and voice servers now?) In single-player systems I'll typically try and push the rules as far as I can, to see if I can maximize the experience; cheat codes are usually for the second play-through, not the first. I enjoy reading about fancypants new age computer games, though I rarely (if ever!) play them, due to a multi-faceted matter of not wanting to spend the money, feeling as though I could be doing something more productive, and wondering if the story or gameplay will be enough to keep me interested.
There's another sort of game, though... one that most people likely won't experience. It is the dice-rolling RPG.
The dice-roller that most people are familiar with is Dungeons & Dragons, which has been around since the 1970s. It's a fun system, despite the stigmas it has carried by a misinformed media and public perception. I've also played in a few other systems, like White Wolf and Savage Worlds. The big differences are in the kinds of dice the players roll, and the specific details of the rules; however, the premise remains the same: the players play heroic adventurers or explorers in a story devised by a game master. Yes, the people who play these games are typically pretty geeky... but it isn't simply the realm of pimply teenage boys; plenty of folks young and old, male and female play these sorts of games, and have a damn good time doing it.
Anywho, the reason why I make such a big deal about all this is because I've started my own Savage Worlds campaign. I've always been a player, not a GM--save for one failed attempt in college--but I held the first session of my Space Bounty Hunter campaign last Sunday night, and it went pretty well. The players--Courtney, Ken, Chris, and Dave--convened online through the wonders of technology, and apparently had a pretty good time. The story, a Cowboy Bebop-meets-Firefly mash-up spiced with tropes from other beloved sci-fi classics, features the players working for a private company solving crimes and making dough throughout a more developed version of our own Solar System. Session 2 is tentatively scheduled for next Sunday evening, since that seems to be when everyone is mostly available.
It's awesome. People are excited about a story that I want to tell. They're interested in participating, and they're having a good time. It's a great feeling.
When I played D&D with friends in high school, I'd get home and my mom would always ask me if I won. It made me smile; with a good session of dice-rolling, everybody wins.
Aug. 29th, 2009 @ 05:35 pm
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| » Great Big Sea, and Other Notables |
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Courtney & I just got back from the Great Big Sea concert at Wolf Trap. I don't go to many concerts, but this was probably one of the best that I've ever attended.
How to explain Great Big Sea? Think St. Patrick's Day in Newfoundland in all the bars down along the docks... but with prettier fans. It's folkish-rock, I'd say... and it's damn catchy. It doesn't hurt that they put on a great show, too; they joked about Santa Claus and Christmas through part of the concert, and broke into some of the more popular recent Christmas tunes for a chorus or two. :-) They've been on a break for a few months, and were itching to get back on tour. They think that this concert had their largest US audience yet--probably a full house, or close to it--and they played a double encore with many of their popular classics. If you're unfamiliar, give them a look-see.
Intro band was Carbon Leaf. Name was familiar, music was not. Courtney & I really liked them, though, so I picked up two of their CDs. Mood was similar to Great Big Sea, but less Irish influence and what Courtney aptly describes as "folk-informed rock".
Big storms rolled through before, during, and after the concert; we had seats to this show in the Filene Center, so we stayed dry until it was time to walk to the car. Unlike the Bill Cosby performance last week, where we sat on the lawn and were stuck in the parking lot for an hour, we were out of Wolf Trap within a minute of reaching the car. Probably a good thing, too; some of the lightning strikes were pretty darn close behind us as we drove away.
A++, will attend again.
In other news: my friend Siobahnne does theater and stage design work out in sunny California. When she's not making the magic happen, however, she's working on a website specifically designed for geek girls: http://geekychicks.net/. While I am specifically not a geeky chick, I do wish to support Sio in her latest venture... so here's your link!
In MORE news: Stacy, her boyfriend Victor, and a number of their friends were cast as extras in a movie months ago. It's called "Taking Woodstock", and it opens on Wednesday, August 26. Apparently their friend Chip Chip--yes, that's what they call him, you should hear some of the other nicknames folks have--is visible in the trailer, and it is entirely possible that Victor is in most of the movie, while 100 copies of Stacy may be in the crowd.
I need to let that sink in for a moment... 100 copies of Stacy. Sweet Jesus.
So yeah, my sister is going to be a movie star. Go check it out!
I think I want a beer, and then sleep. It's a Friday, so that means dreams really can come true! Goodnight!
Aug. 21st, 2009 @ 11:54 pm
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| » Dad Visits DC |
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Just a brief update before bed; I have to go to work in the morning, and I'd kinda like to get up and go for a quick run beforehand.
Dad & Kim came down to visit for the weekend, and we had a pretty good time. They arrived Friday night shortly after the conclusion of a mad cleaning dash by Courtney & I. Saturday we went around to some of our favorite wineries, wandered through Fairfax Corners, and played some Apples to Apples. Sunday Dad & I went to the Udvar-Hazy Center and took a spin around his old stomping grounds before meeting back up with Courtney & Kim, who went shopping. Later in the evening, we went to Wildfire at Tyson's Galleria for an excellent steak dinner. Today I took the day off, and Dad, Kim and I walked around Georgetown for a while before meeting up with Courtney on her lunch break for some custard. Following some Wegmans pizza, Dad & Kim departed for the Hard Rock Cafe in Baltimore, with plans to visit Philadelphia tomorrow before heading back home to CS.
In other news: pseudostepsister Shannon and her husband Matt are going to have a baby! Due date is in March. Additionally, I'm trying to decide if I should go to (Melanie & Chris') baby Matthew's baptism in a few weeks...
Okay, let me rephrase that. I'm thinking I'm probably going to attend, but I need to work out some details. Melanie wants to know if I'd be willing to film it--she says I'm one of the few people she would "trust to not fuck it up," a compliment I found exceptionally gratifying--so I told her I needed to check my work schedule and I'd get back to her by Wednesday. The need to check the work schedule is legit: I wasn't expecting any more time off for a while, and my pool of time off for the year is getting shallower... particularly when I consider what must be reserved for Christmas, possible additional family visits, and a random, unexpected illness. Still, I could probably swing that if need be.
Another concern is the filming itself. Editing is no longer really a problem; I've got my Mac, my ADC, my copies of iMovie HD and Final Cut Express (which I still really should learn at some point). My concern is that my old workhorse of a camcorder, the Canon ES50 that I got for my sixteenth birthday--holy crap, almost a decade ago!--might not cut the mustard. The videos I edited for the Adventure Weekend hazmat suit dancing and the Hunt videos before that show that the play head is finally showing its age; I'm starting to think that, though most of my video is shot via digital camera and cell phone now, it might be time for a new camcorder. I mean, this is a once-in-a-lifetime event; do Melanie & Chris really want the DVD of their son's baptism to be an 8mm analog-to-digital transfer through a camcorder that throws big chromatic jitters every minute or so? I want to do better than that.
I wasn't planning on making such a purchase--paying fall tuition and saving up for the wedding were the key priorities in mind--but it's looking like it might be necessary. I get a paycheck this week, and I have enough to cover all of the above anyway... maybe I can look up a good deal on Amazon like I did for my GPS unit and get it rush shipped for some familiarization time beforehand.
Besides, if Shannon's going to have a baby, then I might just need to do this again in a few months, anyway. :-P Okay, definitely time for bed. Night!
Aug. 17th, 2009 @ 11:19 pm
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| » Published! |
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Today I attended the first day of an international conference held locally... the conference where tomorrow afternoon, I shall deliver a short presentation for my first co-authored, peer-reviewed paper.
That's right: I'm a published author.
Oh yeah.
Apart from figuring out how to squeeze a "Published Works" section into my résumé, I contemplated some of the presentations I was watching. Here are a few helpful tips that I've gleaned from my studies:
- Rehearse your presentation before presenting it. Yes, you know the subject... but if you don't know your own slides--and worse yet, you rely upon them--then you're sunk.
- No baseball caps while presenting.
- Keep your presentation in a single language, preferably the same one as the call for abstracts and the keynote addresses. (Yes, the majority of attendees are Chinese... but having your presentation switch from English sentences to Mandarin flowcharts?)
Something that caught my attention was the prominent use of cameras (SLR, TLR, cameraphone) in the conference. I had pondered taking a picture of one of the posters on display, but held off due to questions of ethics... only to see others taking similar pictures of presenters and their slides during sessions. Most interesting.
The skies tonight are hazy, cloudy, and suffused with the vertical clutter and permeating orange glow of DC's outskirts, thwarting tonight's attempt to catch the peak activity of the most promising Perseid meteor shower in some time. I should be heading to bed, anyway, to make sure I'm at my best for tomorrow. Goodnight!
Aug. 12th, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
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| » Ten Toes to Go |
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I returned to the podiatrist's office today. He glanced at the toe, told me it looked good, and explained how the next phase of healing would happen. For what was supposed to be a double-booked appointment, I got there early and was out within eight minutes of the scheduled time. Basically, I paid $45 today for someone to tell me I can stop bandaging my toe tomorrow and quit taking antibiotics. Beats limping, I suppose.
So what am I pondering at the moment? Many things.
-Dad & Kim are coming down to visit next weekend; I'm looking forward to it, though I've got some cleaning to do around here first.
-I deliver my first co-authored, peer reviewed paper at a local conference next week. I've got some slides I need to review, and shoehorn into my own presentation. It will be a twenty minute session including questions, so that won't be too bad.
-I'm waiting for fall classes to start. I've signed up for two: a remote sensing class on Wednesdays from 7:30pm to 10pm, and a hyperspectral imaging class on Fridays from 4:30pm to 7:10pm. The former will be easy, if the syllabus I saw last semester holds true; the latter will hopefully be quite interesting.
-I've felt like I haven't accomplished much recently, in part because I haven't made much visible progress on any of my ideal research papers. However, as Courtney pointed out, I've been busy editing some long-promised video for my friends, helping prepare for a wedding (reception hall selected, wedding registry well-underway... china has been selected!), traveling a bit, cleaning a little... plus I've been reading up on wine and geography to gain background info for research. I even chatted up the vintner at Bluemont Vineyards briefly on the topic of remote sensing; we went out there for Courtney's birthday on Friday. I guess I haven't been too terribly lazy in some respects.
-I haven't been getting much exercise. I gained a distressing amount of weight over vacation, and I've been trying to keep track of my diet as a result. My weight is back in check somewhat, near the high end of my recent normals; still, now that my foot is serviceably healed, I want to get some new sneakers and get outside running again. I felt good the day after doing some stuff with Wii Fit, a sign that activity truly does beget more activity. Of course, I've been going to bed late recently too, so the shower before bed may have helped me relax into deeper, more restful sleep.
-As mentioned above, I worked on some video: Dave, Chris, Sharleen, and I dancing around a lab at RIT in hazmat suits, circa October 2006. I think the video turned out well, aging camcorder glitches aside. My chief frustration arises from the trouble I'm having getting the video uploaded anywhere. Since the key element of the video is Dave dancing like Will Smith (a la "Fresh Prince of Bel Air") to Sugarhill Gang's "Apache", I used the track as the general theme to my video. According to both YouTube and Facebook, this makes WMG (Warner Music Group) very angry... you wouldn't like them when they're angry. Consequently, my video is either rejected or locked, and I must resort to emailing the file to anyone who wishes to see it. There's a lot about this that frustrates me, so I'll probably vent more about it later.
In happier news, I ran into my old boss today at a seminar and had a good chat over lunch with him. I also had my monthly meeting with my company supervisor. Both reiterated that I have made a good career move. Also, the friends to whom I've emailed the video have expressed enjoyment... especially Sharleen, who's been after me since October 2006 to provide her a copy. Now to work on the tarp cart video...
There, a positive note to close on! Now it's time to try and catch up on some sleep. Goodnight!
Aug. 5th, 2009 @ 10:10 pm
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