dj whitebread

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Siiiike

That would be what the weather is saying right now. After last week's gorgeous weather, we are back into the 90s. First day of Fall? Not here! Bleh. It's almost October, I just wish it would feel like it.

We went up to Dallas this weekend. For all of the djwhitebread readers who don't know, my parents are moving away from Dallas and going back to Baton Rouge. It is kind of strange for me as I was still somewhat young (19) when they moved away, so I've become an adult with them living in Dallas. When I think of Baton Rouge I don't really think of them being there. Anyway, it will be a new adventure like everything in life; we just see where things go and try to enjoy what we have. :)

We had a great meal at The Grape. We talked about how when my parents took us and Richard and Mary there and Richard ordered a drink for dessert. ;) That restaurant has been sort of a staple of life in Dallas, so it was cool to go back one more time.

We gave my parents a webcam for their collective birthday. It's cool to talk over skype. There is something more real about seeing somebody's face while you're talking to them, even if it is over the internet. So if you have a web camera, and I know you, let me and Carrie know!

Work is going well. This is the first time in my life that I actually am enjoying having more than one thing to focus on. I think the dissertation process sort of burned me out on just looking at one thing for a while. It's nice to think about different things. The trick is making the context switches efficient... if you can pull that off you're golden.

Tonight I'm once again headed to the dirt derby. If you live in or around Austin, own a mountain or CX bike, and are in the least bit competitive (even against yourself!) you need to be out here tonight.

I guess that's all I have at the moment. I need to be more consistent with the blogging. I've been going on a weekly basis lately, but I hope to step that up some. The more you write, the easier it is to write. Strange. Happy Tuesday!

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8:49 AM |

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

At school

While I don't yet have a laptop to call my own, I still do have my CS account, and I have tracked down a public workstation to use. The seminar series I have put on for the last year and a half starts up today at 4 PM, so I felt the need to actually show up to school, regardless of the laptop.

We had a great time at the party this weekend. Thanks again to everybody who was able to make it. The margarita machine was a big hit. I think people enjoyed the food and it seemed like people had a good time.

The dirt dirby started up last night in earnest. It was a lot of fun, even though I didn't race at all. ;) If you have a mountain or CX bike and you live in Austin, you need to come out and do this. There are three skill levels and the dirt provides a very safe racing environment. Not to mention it's under the lights, so the darkness doesn't matter. Come on out!

I am now officially a post-doc. It's strange to not be a student. I also have forgotten just how crowded campus is during the school year, especially in the beginning of the fall semester because everybody actually still feels the need to show up to class. ;)

College football started this past weekend. The Tigers and Horns took care of business, but unfortunately Carrie's Aggies weren't so lucky.

Carrie and I got a lot of stuff done around the house on Monday, which was fun. The kitchen cabinet is painted and filled back up. It's cool to actually see our cabinets all be white, and all have doors. We did some serious cleaning, and I was even able to fit in a trip to Fry's to get a few necessary items.

I have always made a point not to discuss politics on here, but this election is just getting so wacky I may have to break my rule. But I'm holding out as long as I can.

Finally, I'm very glad to know that the family all made it through Gustav. It sounds like a large number of trees came down. Baton Rouge has some gorgeous trees, so I'm curious to know how many of the big oaks took a hit. Here's hoping they get the power on sooner than later... 3 weeks with no power starts to become a real problem.

Happy Wednesday!

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2:52 PM |

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Lazy Saturday

We're taking it easy today. It's nice. I think I might try to get some more painting done on the new cabinet in the kitchen before the day is out. I also intend to make it to the gym... both to work out, and of course, because they have a working shower.

The Olympics are coming to an end. It's always sad when they end because they are so much fun to watch. I still can't believe both of the USA 4x100 teams dropped the batons. That's pretty amazing.

I went swimming yesterday... sort of. All gains achieved in the beginning of the summer were gone. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised considering I haven't done anything for the past several months. But, I would like to keep it up and get back to being able to actually do a swim workout. I am thinking of getting on my bike tomorrow. That should be exciting. I'll probably take it pretty easy as I haven't done anything in a while. I think the last time I rode was in June, and I was actually starting to feel pretty good on the bike. But I know that will probably have disappeared at this point. Consistency is the key in getting back that aerobic fitness, so we'll see if I can actually get in a routine.

I'm really loving the watch that Carrie gave me as a graduation present. I've never really had a real "grown-up" watch. It's nice because while it is very pretty, it isn't too big or gaudy. It's just right.

I started to get back to work this week, and I'm really excited about the directions I am going to be pursuing this semester research-wise. I don't remember, actually, the last time I've been this inspired about research. It's amusing, because right before the defense and right after, I really was just so tired of looking at the stuff. It helps that we're taking a little bit different of an approach now, but mainly, I'm working with some new people and that I think is injecting a great amount of excitement into the work.

So my official title this semester is going to be, "Postdoctoral Fellow." It sounds so fancy.

Well, I think I might go try to get that painting done. It involves oil-based paint (yuck) but it will be nice to just get it done and off the queue.

I hope everybody has a good Saturday!

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2:25 PM |

Sunday, August 10, 2008

It's official...

there are less than 24 hours until my defense. That fact (and the realization thereof) is totally blowing my mind.

I have some work to do today on the slides. Harrick is here, and we'll probably go through the slides this afternoon. I've tightened them up a good bit and added more contextual story, so I think the flow is much improved.

Showering at the gym is kind of a pain, I'm not going to lie. I'm sure the plumber is going to call me during my defense tomorrow to give me the quote on the outside work to fix the guest bathroom. Note to self... turn off cell phone.

So Friday was pretty unpleasant, I think most people will give me that. But honestly, I am still thankful of all the wonderful blessing and opportunities I've been given in my life. Yeah, I can't shower at home and my laptop got stolen... but I still have a wonderful, loving, beautiful wife. I still have a fantastic family that has always supported me. I have amazing friends who I count as family. And barring disaster, I should have a Ph.D. in the next week. All in all, I really can't complain. There are so many people out there in the world who have nothing, and who face horrible injustice everyday that I really can feel nothing but lucky.

And regarding the person who actually stole the laptop. I mean, yes I am angry at them. But most of all, I just feel pity for somebody who's life has gotten to the point where stealing something like that is the best option. It's sad, and that is the feeling that I have when I think about it all.

But like I said, there's too much good in my life to be sad or angry for more than a little bit. Time to focus on the good, focus on the work, and get through these last few days and the defense tomorrow morning.

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10:33 AM |

Friday, August 08, 2008

Data restored

Time Machine works well. I have now moved over all of my data onto a new account on Carrie's laptop. Thanks so much to my wife for letting me use her machine for the next week. Defense and dissertation are all safe.

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3:04 PM |

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Less than a week!

Yep, it's Wednesday, my defense is on Monday. It's completely crazy.

Interesting couple of days. Yesterday I arrived at school to see a sign telling us that our building had no power. Turns out the building had been power-free since like 1 AM. I went home. Turns out water main broke and flooded the transformer closet in the adjacent building (named Taylor Hall... water and my name just don't mix apparently) and thus shut off the power, water, and chilled water to the buildings. They got it all fixed yesterday afternoon at some point, but some of my servers are still not back up yet.

Last night our AC shut off. I opened it up to check if the float shut-off switch was the cause, and yep, our drip pan was mighty blocked up. After a chop-stick didn't do the job, I used a tiny suction cup as a plunger and that cleaned it right out. And our AC kicked back on and got back to cooling the condo.

The tropical storm didn't do anything for us in terms of rain. That's a shame, we really need rain here.

Today we get more veggies from greenling. Woot.

Carrie's face is healing up. I think the scar is really not noticeable at all now that the stitches are gone. She's taking good care of it though, so it should clear up really nicely.

Okay, I'm going to get back to working on my presentation. Happy Wednesday.

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11:04 AM |

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Process

I gave a defense presentation to my external committee member over the phone on Tuesday. It went well. I mean, obviously, it could have been much better. Considering I had just finished the slides at 2 AM the night before, there really hadn't been much practice. However, it ended up being more of just a guided conversation, anyway. My committee member had lots of good questions, comments, and suggestions on both the dissertation document and the defense presentation. So good experience all around.

Last night we helped Harry and Meg pack up their truck as they headed out this morning to start the long drive to California. I wish them luck, as the desert in the summer is not high on my lists of places to visit. ;) More so, we'll miss them here in Austin!

More work to do, more work to do. The end is getting strangely close. It doesn't feel real. When you've been working on one thing for seven years (and stating it as your goal for seventeen) it is hard to imagine the day will actually come. I swear I look at the checklist daily of forms that need to be turned in. My nightmare is that I don't graduate because some form is missing or I zigged when I should have zagged.

I am cooking some curried okra tonight. Should be interesting. Tonight I plan on writing. However, I am going to try and do it some place other than school to mix things up and to try and get my creative juices a flowin'.

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4:39 PM |

Saturday, July 26, 2008

I'm still alive

I know I've been kind of quiet on the blog front. Been working a lot. I got a draft out to the committee this week, which was good. I still have a good bit more writing, as well as the defense presentation to work on. So, three weeks of solid more work.

We had an exciting morning, as Carrie's note describes. I'm glad she's all okay now.

I turned in my pink form on Friday, which means I'm officially on the books for doing a defense on Monday, August 11th at 10 AM in Taylor Hall 3.128. So the schedule for the three weeks is: On this Tuesday, I have a teleconference with my external committee member to do a run through my defense for him. I will get comments from him, and probably a few other committee members on the draft in the next week and write those in. I will also be continuing to work on my presentation and hopefully give several practice talks. After the defense, hoping everything goes well, I have until Friday the 15th to get the dissertation uploaded and all the required forms turned in to the Graduate School. Then... well, then I'm done. That is, assuming everything goes okay with the defense. I'm not counting my chickens until they hatch, if you know what I'm saying.

We've been following So You Think You Can Dance this summer. And I must say, at some point in my life I'm going to take hip-hop dance lessons. It just needs to be done, because I need to be able to pop-n-lock.

Okay, back to work... ohh, I have some cookies on my desk. Delicious!

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4:00 PM |

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Here it is

It is strange to finally be on this final step. I sit here with the beginnings of my dissertation in front of me. I have a lot of graphs, and a lot of skeletal descriptions of things. There are many parts that need many more details.

While this is somewhat imposing, that isn't what I wanted to discuss. I want to discuss how easy it is to get caught up in the code, and the experiments, and making graphs and all of these things. But all that is useless unless you can clearly describe to other people in written word why any of this is important. Here is the document with which I am supposed to do just that.

There are a lot of ideas floating in my head right now. Many things I know I need to get down into that document. I'm getting very close, yet, I still have probably one of the harder tasks left. It is finally completely in my hands, and now it is the time for me to step up and do it. Three weeks from tomorrow is the defense... three weeks and four days of this dissertation consuming me. The final push is the hardest, but it is necessary for me to do what I've always dreamed of doing: having a PhD.

Wish me luck...

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4:34 PM |

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Drippy drip drip

So last night we discovered that our upstairs neighbor's A/C was dripping into our A/C cabinet. Luckily, it was a slow drip, so we've contained it, but I mean, seriously? sigh

Preparations for replacing the tub our moving forward. Talked to the plumber today and am awaiting an estimate. We need to start taking down some tile.

School is moving forward. Things seem to be coming together and I'm starting to really feel that this will all actually happen.

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1:00 PM |

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Saturday in ACES

Got here this morning to talk on the phone with Harrick. The conversation was good... much work still to do. I met up with Carrie for lunch at Galaxy Cafe. Tasty as usual.

Carrie's parents left this morning. Her dad did some stuff around our condo and that's awesome. That removes several pending home improvements off of the list. On the subject of home improvement, don't know anything more about the bathroom situation. I'm going to call the insurance on Monday, not that I think they'd cover anything, but since it affected the people below us I just wanted to make them aware of the situation.

I saw a guy get a ticket for pulling into a angled parking spot backwards. The parking people here really don't let you get away with anything.

The Vampire Weekend is my new happy music. Preppy world-rock. I love it.

Okay... back to work.

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2:03 PM |

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Cool

I am not talking about the weather here. We have had some nasty, nasty heat the last few weeks. Some clouds on Friday morning kept it cool while I went for a ride, and the rain that came through yesterday afternoon cooled things off considerably. That drop in temperature made watching the ATT Downtown Austin Criterium that much more enjoyable.

It was really a lot of fun. We got there in time to see the P/1/2 women's race. Some of the best crit racers in the country showed up. The race was fast and had a good bit of attacking. After we finished eating at the Austin Java on the course and watched the final sprint of the women's race, the P/1 men started to file in.

The crit this year was on the USA Crits series and an NRC race, so several of the big domestic teams showed up including Toyota United, Rock Racing (who apparently sponsored the event, man that guy throws money around), Colavita, and several others. So there were a lot of pros there who I've heard of, but the most amusing thing of all was that Tyler Hamilton was there for Rock Racing.

It was just weird to see someone who you've seen on TV (for right and wrong reasons) be there 1 foot away from you racing around the corner of your own downtown. Toyota put there entire train at the front for the final 5 laps or so, but a guy from Colavita spoiled their night with an amazing sprint for the win. All the local Austin guys hung in there the entire time, and even mixed it up a good bit, so that was cool to see.

Afterwards we headed to a friend of ours' birthday party and I got to enjoy some Rockband. Now I'm at school, as I have a ton of work to do. There was a crit being put on today at the State Hospital about a mile from our place, but I decided to neither race it or watch it so I could here and work. So I guess I should do some of that as to not make my decision be in vain. Have a good Sunday, everybody!

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12:47 PM |

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Work work work work

It's kind of lonely up here on the 6th floor after midnight these days...

I just keep busy defending myself from this guy:

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9:58 AM |

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Progress

It's nice when you finally start to make progress on something. The general way I work when it comes to software is that I do a lot of thinking. I like to design as many details as I can. So, it always seems like I'm not getting much done, as no physical artifacts get produced. But then, when I do start coding, I code like crazy. It's all there in my head, I know what needs to be done, I understand the problem, and for the most part, very little has to be figured out online. Not that it always works, but for the most part I can just write, and I go from no code to all code very quickly, relatively.

I would assume this could make some people somewhat nervous. But it seems to work in the long run.

Chad and I operated like that while we were at IBM. We sort of had the luxury of not having hardware, and thus we could spend a lot of time on design without getting yelled out by management. But, that code worked really well and required very little debugging. I think ever since then I've taken that approach.

I know this isn't groundbreaking or anything, and I don't mean it to be. It's just how I've discovered I work. I thought I'd share.

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4:04 PM |

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

To Jersey and Back

We had a wonderful trip to Morristown, New Jersey for the wedding of Harry and Meg. From the multi-course Chinese banquet on Friday to the delicious appetizers and lovely meal at the reception, we did some tasty eating. The wedding itself was beautiful, and hope the happy couple are enjoying fun in the sun right now in Mexico!

Time to get busy with work. Super-serious stress time now.

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10:21 PM |

Thursday, May 29, 2008

What's going on

Let's see. We had a fun-filled Memorial day weekend. Saw Indiana Jones... I sort of share Chad's thoughts. The one point I wanted to make was that the writing, I felt, had that same wittiness that the older movies had. That is something I was very excited to see.

Earlier this week Carrie and I went for a swim in the lake at the gym. We were going to swim in the pool, but it was full, so we decided, heck, let's just swim in the lake, that's what it's there for, right? I was little nervous and I wasn't sure how far I was going to be able to go. The loop around the lake is 750 meters, and I didn't think I would be able to pull that off. But I made it to the first buoy and felt really good. So we kept going... I took a few short breast stroke breaks, but I've never swam so consistently and felt so comfortable swimming as I did then. Towards the end a rainstorm showed up, and we got some practicing swimming with little waves splashing us while we tried to breathe. But it was a pretty cool experience... it was the first time that I felt that maybe I could do this half-ironman in October. So yeah... I think I'm going to sign up for the Longhorn. Any other takers?

I've been using the past three weeks to try and recover some from the OSDI push. However, I know that is now time to get back to it for the final push for my dissertation and defense. It's just so consuming... it's sort of hard to get back into it, but this is the final push for my degree, and I have to get it done.

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1:36 PM |

Friday, May 02, 2008

Alive

I am alive. Conference was a blast, even though I didn't necessarily do well. The rain during the crit really was horrifying; the infamous corner four became more infamous. But we brought the trophy back home with us to Austin. Two years in a row! Hook'em!

I'm working a lot, and will continue to do so until Thursday night. I'm hoping to squeeze in a some exercise here and there. I should probably swim once before the triathlon a week from tomorrow. Whoops.

I can still rock out to the latest Muse album.

I have been updating my Twitter feed decently frequently because it's fast and I don't feel the need to be as thorough in my commentary. Clicky.

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11:04 PM |

Friday, April 18, 2008

An explanation...

So there's a quote about PhDs being more an exercise in perseverance than anything else. That is very much true. Good thing I am like way stubborn.

Yesterday's faculty candidate gave a presentation on research that is very close to what I do. And very good. And very well published. Oh yeah, and he helps people in the developing world have increased access to the internet, in his spare time. Needless to say, I was left feeling a tad bit inadequate.

I mean, there are technical difference between his stuff and mine. And they completely punt on a certain problem that is really at the heart of what we do. I won't get into anymore detail here, it isn't important.

I want to be a professor. That has always been my goal. The issue is that being a professor is very competitive. My CV isn't all that great; I just don't have enough publications. Now there are lots of reasons for this, but it is still hard to keep up the faith at times that I'm eventually going to make it where I want to be. And let's get this straight, I have no chance of ever landing at a top ten kind of place. Not that I necessarily want to; it's a pretty crazy life. It's just hard to keep the faith that there is a path that I can go down that will end me up with a quality academic position in a cool town.

Hence why my last post was sort of depressing. I am feeling much better today. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe it's the beautiful weather. It certainly isn't my performance at the crit last night, ;). My last collegiate race is this weekend. I'm going to try and turn myself inside out to help out the team.

As for my lookout on my job prospects, I sort of need to be able to put all of that out of my mind. I need to try to get something out of the door for OSDI in three weeks and then defend/turn in my dissertation. Those are primary. I am lucky enough to have the fall to focus on job stuff... I think I will get to the point where I'm a professor. I have faith. The path just isn't clear right now, but is it ever really clear? I guess for certain people from certain schools it is... but it is probably the lack of clarity at times that makes life more interesting. Change is scary, and there is probably a lot of that coming.

I guess on some level all this is good, because I don't like to have open issues, and this is forcing me to leave a really big one just wide open and still be productive and move on with the rest of my life. Tricky, this is.

But hey, it's Friday. I'm going to race hard and work hard this weekend. On Monday I'll keep on working. The best way to improve my chances is hard work, so I guess that's what I have to do.

Have a good weekend.

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3:09 PM |

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Meh

Feeling amazingly panicked about school at the same feeling amazingly defeatist. I'm going to go ride my bike to the crits, where I will also not do well, but at least I'll be outside in the sun enjoying the weather and getting exercise.

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2:46 PM |

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Recovering

I wanted to go for a ride yesterday, but as I was just riding my bike from the shop up to the truck, my legs (specifically my quads) felt completely sore and tired. So, I decided another day of rest and another full night of sleep would be a good thing. I do plan on going for a ride tonight, however, and I'm going to ride down to the crit tomorrow and get dropped in the 3/4 race. ;) They are actually hosting a crit skills clinic, so I hope that I can do that as well. I'm confused about the timing of the clinic, but hopefully it will all make sense once we get out there.

This weekend is Texas State's race weekend. I plan on skipping the short hill-climb time-trial in the morning and heading down Saturday afternoon for the crit and Sunday morning for the road race. The nice thing is with being in San Marcos I should still be able to get some work in both days as well as race.

I'm having a hard time getting stuff done the past few days. I'm really going to make an effort to get through what I need to get through today, so I can get back to building features.

Happy hump day.

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10:27 AM |

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Cloudy

It is cloudy today. I'm listening to the newest Wilco album. They seem a good match. I have never been a direct fan of Wilco, I have never dislike them or anything, just never tried to get into them. They were on Saturday Night Live a week ago, and I really enjoyed both of the songs that they played. I'm really enjoying the album.

While the switch to DST has left the mornings pitch black, the extra hour of sunshine at night is already making me excited about having more time to ride. I believe I am going to go take advantage of it this evening. Did a little over 40 miles on Saturday, and I went to spin class Sunday and Monday. I discovered on Saturday that I shouldn't wake up and get directly on the bike. It took me a while to feel in anyway warmed up. I mean, I still don't have much strength I feel. I was getting passed up hills by all kinds of people. When the smallish, clearly in shape people pass me up hills, I don't care at all. But when the big dude who clearly weighs a good bit more than me passes me, I really start to get frustrated.

So Paris-Nice is underway without the mass suspensions that the UCI threatened. I thought it was an interesting idea to set up the ProTour like the soccer leagues: the bottom two teams go down a level and the top two pro-continental teams become ProTour every year. That could be really cool. Of course, all of this arguing is coming down to money and Euro-stubbornness, so who knows if it will come to a decent conclusion, and it's the riders who end up getting screwed anyway.

After really feeling annoyed at my work on Friday, I'm starting to get a little more excited. Things are starting to fall into place in my head and I feel that I can really start making progress towards OSDI and defending.

I hope everybody is having a good week.

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9:27 AM |

Thursday, March 06, 2008

A few things

Did the pedal through the pines on Saturday. I rode the 50-mile route (actually just like 47). I went out like I had the fitness I had last year at this event. At the half-way point my legs were dead. Luckily, we had a tail-wind for the last 10 miles or so. That helped a lot. It was fun to be on the bike though. I am really looking forward to the time change this weekend as it will make riding during the week that much easier. This week also has had several things going on at night that is keeping me from attending the spin classes at the gym. And 6 AM is really early, so I haven't been able to make it to the gym for those.

One of those things that went on this week was the caucus. I went to our local polling place to caucus. It was interesting. It was also highly disorganized. They really had no idea what to do as the turnout was huge. Apparently, it was somewhat of a record turnout. While it was kind of crazy, it was interesting to take part in our election process in a way that I have never seen before.

I hope to get some good miles in this weekend. The weekends get busier as the month goes on, so I need to get as much distance in as I can.

Oh yeah, I also have a ton of work to do.

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10:21 AM |

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Many things

We are in Baton Rouge for the upcoming wedding of Maureen and Greg. I am excited; it should be fun as lots of people are coming into town for said wedding. Always nice to see friends.

The Tour continues to have it's issues. I just knew something was going to go down with Rasmussen. It seemed like every day his story got sketchier and sketchier. I do like all three of the people now in the lead though, so hopefully one of them will make it happen. Cadel and Levi are pretty decent time trialists, so I'm curious to see how well Contador can do, and if he can hang on.

While it is annoying that there are still cheaters to catch, I do think it is good that people are getting caught. I am also glad that the riders seem to be actively speaking out against everything. It isn't just, "I don't dope, leave me alone." Now there actually seems to be a dislike of the practice and the people who do it.

Tom Boonen gave me another reason to think he is awesome. Check out this quote:

Vino is a dirty cheat who they ought to suspend for his lifetime. He is causing immense damage to everyone. There are so many teams in search of a new sponsor. This case will not make it easier.

Tornado Tom does not mince words; awesome.

On the work front I'm trying to finish up some stuff to send off to Harrick today. My inlaws now have a wireless router, so that makes working from the house a lot more feasible. We will be heading out to Hawaii in two weeks from tomorrow. Pretty crazy. I still need to do my talk!

There were several things that occurred that I did not blog about. I went down to San Antonio to compete in an autocross event again, but this time I brought the Accord and raced it. It was a lot of fun, but I still have much improving to do.

We went to Merri Su and Brian's wedding. It was a very nice affair in the hill country.

Carrie and I saw Harry Potter and Ocean's 13 one weekend. I immensely enjoyed both movies, but I a sucker for both of those franchises.

On the subject of the HP, Carrie and I went get a book on Friday night, and she finished on Saturday night. I have yet to start the book, so I am eagerly awaiting starting it and quickly finishing it when I get back to Austin.

I really need to start riding my bike again. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's getting out of hand. With the upcoming trip to Hawaii and the associated work with that, it is going to be tough to make myself schedule the time for riding. But, those are all just excuses. If I really want to do it there should be no reason why I can't.

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10:17 AM |

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

French Toast

Made French Toast for breakfast. It was good, albeit a tad bit heavy. I was going to use the leftover French bread we had, but it had turned a tad bit hard. One would think that would be good... except that it was so brittle it shattered as I tried to slice it. Oh well... the Health Nut worked out well.

The autocross on Sunday was a blast. I improved as the day went on. I had a few spinouts, but that's all part of the learning process. I got 4th out of the 7 novices. Not too bad for my first time out, if I do say so myself. A guy in a Yaris beat me... but since he had taken his back seat out his time got a harder normalization factor than me. I hope to get the Accord back today, so come July 8th I'm going to give driving that a try.

I am having a very hard time debugging my code at the moment. I'm getting a segmentation fault, and I have absolutely no idea what could be causing it. This is why parallel programming is hard. Concurrency does weird stuff.

I keep wimping out on the Tuesday Nighter. I am not sure what it is... I just don't feel fast right now. I don't know... I think I am going to go swimming.

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11:43 AM |

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Wednesday already

This past weekend we all had a good time at Greg LaBorde's bachelor party. His friend Doug did a stellar job arranging the weekend, and the house we had on the lake was awesome. We rented a ski boat on Saturday and I actually got to ski, which always makes for a fun time.

After the paper was turned in, I quickly fell back into my 2am-10am sleep schedule that my body seems to so naturally go towards. While, that works well when I'm working until 2am as productivity goes, not so much when I'm going home at a normal time. I was able to get myself out of bed this morning at a decent time (I also went to bed earlier than 2), and hopefully I can keep this up, at least for a little while.

I watched the last two episodes of Heroes. Interesting.

Carrie and I then watched a movie called, "Goodbye, Lenin" on the recommendation of Greg Deist. I really enjoyed it. I am fascinated by the old Soviet Bloc, so it was definitely an interesting movie for me. It was funny, but in a sort of serious way. But it was never too heavy. I was a fan.

So I am having the hardest time motivating myself to ride my bike by myself right now. Maybe it is the heat. Riding with other people... tell me when to meet. Riding by myself, eh. I guess it is partly because I don't have any "targets" right now other than sucking less at the Thursday crits. I don't think I'm going to race AMLI. The entry fee is pretty high, and I'm sure everybody is going to be bringing their A game, which is way more A than mine. I will definitely, however, be down there in the evening to watch the Women's and Men's Pro Races. I think we are technically co-sponsoring it or something.

So we made our hotel and plane reservations for Hawaii. Aloha, indeed. We are flying direct from Houston to Honolulu. It will be a long flight, but it should be a very straightforward trip. I made need to look into some anti-anxiety medication. I mean, I'm definitely going to need some if I go to India.

The WoW front is going well, also. The group I play with is making a lot of progress towards our goal, and I'm getting my character better geared, which in turn makes me better at my role in the game. This all goes towards the part of the game that Carrie isn't a fan of... the part where it "doesn't end."

Alrighty... that's it for now.

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9:14 AM |

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Goings on

The paper got off. The Lagniappe blog has more details.

Di Luca is continuing to keep the Giro under control. It has been some quality racing.

Been catching up on WoW. The game still rocks. The changes in the most recent patch were well done. Blizzard continues to impress me as a company that seems to actually listen to its customers.

Went for a ride yesterday. For being on my bike a little under two hours, and really not going hard at all, I should not have had an average heart rate of 154. The heat got me, and I was I think dehydrated before I even started. Luckily, we cut short the original planned ride. I didn't completely bonk myself out. Got a good bit of sleep last night, however. I'm going for another ride today, hopefully the results will be much better.

This of course implies that I'm not doing the crit tonight. I will gladly pay 10 dollars to get destroyed. However, I will only do it if I think I can improve and hang on longer. The lack of riding in the last few weeks, however, will not help that and going for a normal ride will be of much more benefit. I think next Tuesday I'm doing the Tuesday Nighter. It is about time for me to man up.

This weekend is Greg LaBorde's bachelor party at a lake house out on Lake Travis. Should be a good time.

Have the last two episodes of Heroes on the DVR. Also have the last two episodes of Studio 60. I'm glad to see it did in fact come back. Not sure if they renewed it for next season, though. Hopefully.

Oh well, hope everybody is doing fine.

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2:57 PM |

Thursday, May 24, 2007

We're back

We're back from the beach. Lost about 1.5 hours yesterday sitting in standstill traffic at random places. Bleh. Anyway, we made it home to a very spastic kitty. We had a great trip. Unfortunately, now it is time for me to work my tail off.

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9:31 AM |

Friday, May 11, 2007

Inspiration...

I am fascinated by the creative process. What exactly do I mean by that? At some point when you get good enough at something you are able to really create new aspects of whatever it is you are good at. Whether it be an artist painting new paintings or a scientist creating new research, the process by which people get to this creative point and the actual process of their craft I find fascinating.

Last night we attended Ballet Austin's final performance of the season, "A Special Evening with Stephen Mills." There were three original works, one that was written 5 years ago and two premiers. Before each dance, they played a video of Mills discussing the work and his thoughts on creating said work, and dance in general. Each of the dances I found fantastic, modern and captivating. The dance paired with a peek into what it takes to make them I found absolutely fascinating.

Inspiration to get better at what I do has come in odd places, sometimes a venti latte from Starbucks, and last night it came in the form of dance. Can art influence science... here's hoping.

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11:29 AM |

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Thursday

The deadline approacheth. Much work to be done.

Went for a ride yesterday. Did a little climbing, felt okay while climbing, felt like a total pansy when not climbing. Shoulder starting hurting pretty badly, so I had to cut the ride short.

My availability for the race on Sunday is in doubt. I really wanted to do this race, too. With all this rain it really should be epic.

Lloyd and Catherine just came up to the sixth floor to pay me a visit, that was a nice touch to the day. :)

Alrighty... I guess I should try to get a little bit done before I grab some lunch. Just a little over a week until I can enjoy the savory, delicious taste of meat once more. There are some Rudy's baby back ribs with my name on them come Easter Sunday.

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11:22 AM |

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Confusingly fast

That's how this week has progressed. It's already Thursday? What?

I was able to get some hill work in on Tuesday. That was good. However, my recovery ride plans for yesterday didn't happen, nor or is any riding going to happen today. I need to get something turned in to Harrick tonight before I go to sleep (whenever that may be) so I plan on getting in a decently long ride tomorrow. Maybe I'll do 50+ out west... I'm feeling ambitious. I know that may sound lame, but with the distances I've been riding lately, it'd be ambitious. Cheaha is a'comin' and I need to have mileage (and hills, lots of hills) in my legs before then.

Had a fun guy night last night with Chad in town. We met for dinner with Jerry and then headed back to Carrie and I's condo and played a little WoW with Richard and Wayne. Good times.

Carrie is doing a half-marathon that looks to be tough this weekend. I'm going down there with her and her friend Merri Su (also running) with my bike and hope to get a good ride in. They are pretty much running the course from the Texas State road race. Yeah, the one with the big hill. Other than that it shouldn't be too bad. I need to figure out where to ride as they probably won't like me riding on the half-marathon course.

Okay, I need to get to writing. Have a good Thursday.

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8:33 AM |




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