| (no subject) |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|08:57 pm] |
Well, my flight home leaves at 8am tomorrow. I should probably start packing.
...
<.<
>.>
...
*goes off to look at the internet*
Oooo! Sparkly! |
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| 2009 Recap |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|04:20 pm] |
1.What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before?
Performed outside of Upper Darby. Had a full-time job writing software. Lived by myself. Bought a car.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I kept my resolutions, but I will make new ones.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. This is a good thing.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
Nope. First time in a while I've been able to say that. :P
5. What countries did you visit?
None. :( :( :(
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
I would have liked to travel some. Also, would have liked to manage my finances a bit better.
7. What date(s) from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
There were lots of great times in 2009. Nothing in particular stands out, though.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
See #1.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I didn't manage my time very well. I need to find a way to have enough going on that I feel satisfied, yet still nothing is falling to the wayside. I'm not good at managing that tightrope.
10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
Allergies and a cold.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My car. :)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My fellow Seussicians, cast, crew, and production team, had fantastic A-game throughout our run. A+. :)
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I'm no gossip.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Taxes, student loans, rent, and insurance.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Seussical, Joseph, and Millie were all really fun, exciting, and fantastic.
I was very excited to get a non-contract job.
16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
I didn't listen to much music this year.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Hard to tell.
ii. thinner or fatter? A little fatter, I think. Need to work on that. :( :( :( WAY TO BRING IT UP STUPID SURVEY.
iii. richer or poorer? Poorer. Lots of expenses. But more stable? Maybe I can fix that this year.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading, gym, and local developer events.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Watching TV and movies. I got into a bit of a habit/slump with that this year. I need to really set hard limits on how much time I spend on that on a weekly basis.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Having family over for dinner.
22. Did you fall in love in 2009?
No.
23. How many one-night stands?
I don't think any? Depends on how you define them, I guess.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Ugh. Now for my shame! I've watched the following series in their entirety (or mostly) this year:
MASH. All the StarTreks except Enterprise. Full Metal Alchemist. The Office. Roseanne. Dr. Who. Band of Brothers. The Shield. Modern Family. Psych. True Blood. Glee. Greek. The Daily Show. Colbert Report. How I Met Your Mother. 30 Rock. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
That's just too much.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
In true spirit of my hybrid Jewish/Catholic upbringing, there's no one I hate but there are people who I am very disappointed in. ;-)
26. What was the best book you read?
I re-read Lloyd Alexander's Prydain chronicles. YES I KNOW THEY'RE KID BOOKS. SHUT UP.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Not really.
28. What did you want and get?
I don't really want anything over the holidays. My boss got me remote entry and remote car start, though, which was pretty sweet.
29. What did you want and not get?
See above.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Up was this year, right?
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I don't think that I did anything on the day of my birthday. Friends threw a party the weekend after.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Not sure! I'll think on that for next year. ;)
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Whatever is clean.
34. What kept you sane?
I don't think I used any crutches. Heh.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
That's not really my thing.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Gay marriage, health care, and the ridiculous Tea Parties.
37. Who did you miss?
Many.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
This time last year, I didn't know anyone from Bernies or Seussical, so all of you fine people. ♥ :D
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
I kept too busy to learn anything. Maybe slow down some?
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
No. |
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| there is |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|10:25 pm] |
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A person whose job it is is to choose what snippets from the last show go on this episode’s “Previously, on XYZ”... |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|08:54 pm] |
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Down the hall, someone has been blasting "Canon in D" on repeat all afternoon and evening. |
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| Merry Christmas ever' one! |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|02:19 pm] |
Here's a picture of Mrs. Regan on Santa T's lap!
In other news, my mom let me know she recently gave money to Wikimedia, because she (like all of us, I imagine) uses Wikipedia. I haven't donated to them, though I probably should.
I'm sort of not 100% behind donating money to charity in general. I can get behind things like donating food to food banks, but when it comes to giving money to large organizations I'm not too enthusiastic. Where does my money go? Do I get a say in it? What if someone in the organization embezzles? And so on.
There is one charity, however, that I've given to for two years in a row now: Child's Play. Child's Play is a yearly charity created by the guys who do Penny Arcade. If you are not familiar, Penny Arcade is a webcomic that's been running MWF since 1998. It's grown into one of the most popular comics on the web, as well as showcasing how good of an artist one can become from repetition. Consider, Gabe's drawing skills went from this:
which has an acceptable level of artistry (certainly better than I could do!), to this:
which for a daily comic has a surprising level of detail and coloring, or this,
which could easily be found in a children's book.
Anyway, in 2003 they created Child's Play. Child's Play's mission is simple: give people the opportunity to buy toys for sick kids in children's hospitals. You go to the website, choose a hospital, and are taken to an Amazon wish list page. Hospitals can list how many of each item they want, as well as priority.
Both years that I've done it, I've gotten two things, one for younger kids and one for older. Luckily, the hospital I get stuff for (Buffalo Children's) has a wide range of prices, so it doesn't break my wallet.
The growth of Child's Play is rather staggering. Check this out:
|2:|0|$250,000|$500,000|$750,000|$1,000,000|$1,250,000|$1,500,000)
The charity is ongoing this year, which is why that number is lower. I don't think they'll have any trouble surpassing 2008's amount. Whatever the case, it's a pretty awesome amount of giving considering the charity only runs in November and December. And being able to buy specific toys for sick children—what's not to like?
All this from a couple of guys (from Spokane!) who wanted to draw a comic strip for a living, somehow managed to succeed, and decided to do something good for people. Pretty amazing, I think. And I think it fits in wonderfully with the season.
Merry Christmas to you all!
In other news, this guy puts all of my tinkering/project'ing to shame:
He built the model over 3 years and 6,000 hours. Astounding! A staggering amount of work went into this. |
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| CAT scan |
[Dec. 25th, 2009|08:30 pm] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Alfred Schnittke - Collected Songs Where Every Verse is Filled with Grief | ] |
Name three animals that rhyme with cat. |
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| Doing Hos is Hard Work |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|03:12 pm] |
Etch-a-Sketch doesn't involve much hill climbing. GPS-a-Sketch in San Francisco does, however:
Merry Christmas from me and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) whatever_art to you!
*
In other news: not going anywhere for Christmas. Staying in San Francisco, hosting a 10 person orphan dinner. But then going to the Caribbean on a 7 night cruise over New Year's with parents, Sierra, my brother Cole and his girlfriend. Should be fun. :) |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|10:07 pm] |
:D Have a good one, everyone! |
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| The Year in Review |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|07:38 pm] |
As with every year, I see silmaril do one of these, and follow up with one of my own.
I've faded in actual postings lately - replacing them with an increased twitter coverage, piped through to my livejournal. We'll see whether this change is visible.
First sentence of the first entry of each month in 2009, unless more is necessary for context.
January I arrived yesterday late afternoon in Washington DC, and got picked up, almost immediately, by silmaril, Breno and Adrian - who booked a table at the Cheesecake Factory by Friendship Heights.
FebruaryMy paper Blackbox computation of A∞-algebras has been accepted for publication. [This was the entire text of the entry]
MarchI recently got a free give-away first intro adventure, with all the relevant rules for that particular adventure embedded, for Changeling: the Lost.
Aprilculfinriel, you did the right thing yesterday.
MayHomemade Crème Brûlée.
JuneA companion character to Daina. [Skipped a meme post]
JulyI'm listening to a clip from Rachel Maddow's show, interviewing Pat Buchanan about the Sotomayor brouhaha. [Skipped two meme posts]
AugustAnd a bunch of conga rat lines for my dear sister thette!
SeptemberI'm back in the Bay.
October Alternative title: "What I did in mathcamp this summer!" - the paper is the result of the one 2-week workshop I took for the fun of it.
Alternatively, non-twitter: Because, y'know, the top news for 'bar code' is that Google has it as its new logo.
NovemberGot a good reference to introduce algebraists to quandles?
Alternatively, non-twitter: There's apparently a new research institute looking to hire academics all across the board - the mathjobs.org RSS feed has ads up for everything from early postdocs to full professors.
DecemberMy MSc thesis advisor, Jörgen Backelin, once picked up on my using the Swedish conjunctive in an exam answer...
Alternatively, non-twitter: Baby it's cold outside... ...and inside too, for this? This is California, where the weather is always nice, and thus the housebuilders don't hold with things like insulation, multiple glass panes, or heating.
In some ways a fair sampling from the year. March was about my getting back into World of Darkness - and indeed, I took up MUSHing in the summer again to get into it. The June post was a first stab at building a character, that later got abandoned in favor for a different idea - one that I still play now.
April was about going dancing while I was visiting the Durham/Raleigh-area, and about a West Coast Swing Club that disappointed.
From November onwards, my twitter feed got hooked into my Livejournal feed. I've given both twitter-first and non-twitter-first for those months.
Thinking back over the year, over the things this sampling missed...
Workwise
This was the year I got started with my postdoc. I had spent the first fall at Stanford flailing a bit to keep up with my coauthor, and to find my footing, fighting off at least one depression caused by the sudden onset of research in a field different enough that my old footing didn't hold. During late 2008, this lack of footing had me fighting insufficiency feelings - and those got actually conquered during 2009.
It's also the most travel-intense and conference-intense year EVER. I spent most of the time late March - late September traveling more or less constantly, meeting people constantly, going to conferences, visiting universities, and being a traveling scholar. Intense. VERY intense. But also very fruitful. Out of this grew a research agenda of my own, with a slew of more or less intensely pursued projects; projects other people care about, projects that can hold lifetimes between the short term (finished before I leave Stanford) to the very long term (things I can keep milking until I retire or grow too bored with them).
I started doing things far outside the comfort zone of what my funding agency tells me to do this year. There is a reference in the quotes above to the 'What I did last summer'-paper. This paper had ALL of its research performed during an idyllic 2 weeks in Luminy outside Marseilles. I met the authors of an earlier paper, sat down, and banged out an implementation of their system in Haskell. This since has materialized into a published and done paper - recently accepted with only minor changes requested.
During the fall, things congealed for me. I took up teaching. I started mentoring a senior thesis. I formulated a Grand Vision For The Future - which may or may not prove too outlandish to work. And I got things rolling on several projects. Right now, as the year goes to an end, I'm a peer review referee. I've a growing publication list, and projects in a clear pipeline. The projects I was giving up on have been revived by students taking them on, and the projects I'm enthusiastic about have been picked up on by my PI as being really worth-while working on.
In other words, as good as it gets in academia.
Hobbies
I've taken up dancing. Swing, to be specific. This happened before 2009, but it got to a habit, and it started infecting others during this year.
My parents have taken up Swing after visiting me in Galway and joining a class with Galway Swing during their visit.
I've taken up going to the 9:20 Special, and Lindy in the Park in San Francisco. And I've bought swing dancing shoes. With Susanne, I went to a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert. Swing is part of my life now.
Speaking of concerts - I moved to San Francisco proper after my Summer Of Travels. And I love it. One of the things living in The City brings me is that all of a sudden, the life of the city is within reach. I went to concerts by Infected Mushroom, Leonard Cohen and Covenant this fall - and I (just barely) kept myself from going to Röyksopp too.
More things that happen when living in the City? Soooo many I won't be able to list them all. But I've gotten more interesting things out of hanging out with the Hacker/Maker-space Noisebridge than before - and I've been pulled in for more than a few gloriously weird events along the way. Street parties, parades, street games, guerilla swings in the subway ... life is wondrously weird in The City.
Life and Family
As I mentioned above, I moved house during the year. Instead of living out in East Palo Alto, dependent on both buses and trains to move about, I now live in downtown San Francisco.
I'm still dependent on both buses and trains to move about, but they run more often, later at night, and the whole City is within reach, instead of 'just' East Palo Alto, barely campus.
With family, things are going along much the same they used to. My wife came to visit in Galway during the summer, and in San Francisco during the fall. We both went to Chicago. And I keep going to see her regularly. My parents came to Galway while I was there.
Living apart is taxing. But doable.
And we've faced grief and sorrow in the extended family. My wife's aunt passed away - prematurely. Leaving husband and two children, as well as the rest of the family, dealing with the loss.
All in all, a glorious year, filled with happiness more than sorrow, and with the fulfillment of dreams and hopes. |
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| Just Amazed |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|01:02 pm] |
I'm still amazed every time I read somebody defending one party in Congress and attacking the other.
"My lying, cheating, treasonous sons of bitches in Congress are better than your lying, cheating, treasonous sons of bitches in Congress!"
I can understand that sort of blind dedication and fervor being a part of human nature and having its place -- that's how I know that the Giants are going to win the Superbowl every year and that the Eagles suck. But this is no game. |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|07:54 pm] |
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Posting on tumblr mostly now. Cause its a whole lot easier. |
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| steampowered |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|09:27 am] |
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Torchlight 10 hrs / 10 hrs %) |
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| (no subject) |
[Dec. 24th, 2009|01:12 am] |
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"And I like large parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy." |
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| at least Xmas doesn't come for another 48 hours! |
[Dec. 23rd, 2009|03:43 pm] |
Yesterday:
Up at 6 am
Wait for sofa delivery until 11 am. Can't bake- no sugar. Can't wrap- no boxes. Trapped!
New sofas delivered. They look great. Way more respectable than the other ones!
Shopping shopping shopping shopping
Picked up emo_snal at the airport at 4 pm, home from Tallship adventure on the Columbia River
frickeec came over
we bolted our dinner and then went out to buy a Christmas tree 12/22, wow
Boys (!) decorated Xmas tree with O and then we had a fizzy party and played apples to apples
Today: shiver in bed
Up at 6:30 (slept in)
baking rich brownies with zest of tangerine and coffee/chocolate chip/tangerine zest shortbread before 10 a.m.
lunch at all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant w/ best friend for my birthday, 11 am - 1pm
tea and sampling of shortbread from 1 - 2
collapsing at home at 3 pm
Cooked a stew with guinness style stout and thyme
Still to come:
grocery store
pick up nibot at airport at 6 pm
when will I ever:
finish shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking, sleeping.
I'm so tired! |
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