instant gratification

I'm writing this in response to all the firings (and talk of firings) that have been happening around the Major Leagues since the season has ended.

Take, for example, the Oakland Athletics. They rolled over and died in the ALCS after doing quite a number on the Minnesota Twins in the division series. Now, they've been having some problems lately in the post-season. In the last 9 times they went to the postseason, they were unable to win a clinching game. 9 times! I remember when I was in elementary school (which was ~15 years ago), the A's WON the world series. So, in 15 years, the A's made it to the post-season 9 times! The rangers did it 3 times. And, of those three, they only one one (1) game.

I guess I can understand the frustration of the fans, never being able to advance past the first round. But hey, at least they GOT there. They've won world series in the past.

So, as a reward for managing a team which a) won the division, and b) won the first round of the playoffs, and c) had won 368 and lost 280 over 4 years, a 0.568 winning percentage, Ken Macha was summarily dismissed from his post not a week after being swept by the Tigers.

Now, I understand the owners wanting their teams to perform, especially since they put so much money into them, but in the postseason, I'm not so sure you can your expectations of a team by how much money you've thrown in their direction.

Case in point: The New York Yankees. Year after year, George Steinbrenner spends very pretty pennies ensuring that he has the best players in baseball. To their credit, they are awesome baseball players. They definitly deserve to be making the money they are. However, their talent seems to be concentrated on being consistently good in the regular season. For the past several years, the Yankees have always been atop the AL East division. They've made it to the post season with out fail for the past 12 seasons. They've gone to the World Series 6 times, and they've won it 4 times.

When they got knocked out in the first round against Detroit, there was a big media clammor over whether or not Joe Torre (the manager) would keep his job. Steinbrenner was livid, of course.

People like George Steinbrenner don't get baseball. To him, baseball is a simple formula. Money in = World Series Titles. He pays his players and expects them to perform like machines. He refuses to believe that players with inferior regular-season records could even compete with his players. Over the course of a season, he's probably right. However, this is not the case in the post-season.

George Steinbrenner doesn't realize that there's more to baseball than just statistics. Momentum is a very powerful thing in baseball. When a team's on a roll, it's hard to stop them, whichever way it's going. Chemistry and clubhouse leadership are rather intangible, but are very important in any team sport.

More important, is the clutch player. Some players (most Yankees) are phenomenal regular season players. They can put up numbers like nobody's business, but when the chips are down, they choke. Some notable clutch players: Kirk Gibson, Rusty Greer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ortiz, and even Derek Jeter.

Alex Rodriguez is a perfect example of what is NOT a clutch player. His post-season performance has been abysmal. Yet, the Yankees are spending $25.2 million a year on him.

One thing which has made itself painfully obvious in most of the recent post-season games. Good pitching will beat good hitting every time. Hitting is more macho, but pitching is the essence of baseball.

On a related note, my dad always said: "Never trust a pitcher. They will tell you a lie when the truth would do."

---

So, enough bitching about the Yankees. It looks like we've got quite a World Serious on our hands. Caroline and I have a friendly wager on the outcome. I'm pulling for the Tigers, and she's rooting for the Cards. We have yet to decide the stakes of the bet, but I'm pretty confident, whatever it is, I'm going to win.

Skype

I've got Skype now. Don't worry, it's not a communicable disease. It's a VOIP client which uses your computer and your internet connection. If anyone else who reads this has it, my username is Acetylene5. Call me sometime

Yellow Snapdragons: Olbermann on Habeus Corpus

This is a ominous clip... Big Brother seems to be doing a good job keeping us scared.

Yellow Snapdragons: Olbermann on Habeus Corpus

It's been a sad week in the world of the bands/singers that I like...

Freddy Fender died today of Lung Cancer in Corpus Christi, TX. He played guitar and sang in the Texas Tornados.

They've got some great songs... Especially "Dinero", "Adios, Mexico", "(Hey Baby) Que Paso?", and "Soy de San Luis"...

Check 'em out, you'll be glad you did.

Bill Maher on Pluto

Bill Maher on Pluto and the republican attitude towards science...

It starts off talking about something else, but when he gets to it, it's glorious!

The Lancelet: Anti-science vs. anti-evolution

I agree with this blogger.

The Lancelet: Anti-science vs. anti-evolution

Right on. Keep on fighting the good fight.

adios, los skarnales....

I just found out that a band I like (Los Skarnales) is breaking up. I won't say they're my favorite band, because they're not, but they were the first band I saw live here in Austin. They are possibly the best live band I've ever seen. I bought a CD from them at their show at the Continential Club in Austin. They aren't the most polished studio band, but I've never seen a band with so much energy live.

I almost saw them again a few weeks ago. The only thing is, the tickets were $35 to get in the door, which was WAY more than we were expecting. So, instead, we went back to my house and got drunk. I would have rather seen Los Skarnales.

Oh well, I hope the break-up was amicable and maybe they'll do a reunion tour through Austin someday.

I've got a CD if anyone wants to borrow it. They're best described as Mexican Ska.

I feel a disturbance in the store....

What if Darth Vader had a brother named Chad who worked as a day shift manager at Empire Groceries?

Chad Vader...

Genius.

funny

I'm Going To Be A Star

Youtube rocks....

What ISN'T there a World Record for?

This one is awkward... almost painful...

Don't Buck the trend....

So, the Rangers fired Buck Showalter as their manager yesterday. I though that he was doing an alright job, and was willing to give him a few seasons more. But, I guess the Rangers' upper management disagreed.

I can't say I'm altogether broken up about it for a few reasons:

1) Joe Girardi was fired from the Marlins after pissing off the owner. He managed to turn a team full of rookies into serious playoff contenders. Maybe he can work some magic with the worst franchise in sports history...

2) The last two times Buck was fired, the team he left ended up winning the world series the very next year. Can lightening strike three times?

Of course, he got fired from the Yankees and the Diamondback, both of which had winning records during his final season.

I wish him well, I guess, but I hope the replacement can do better.

Dammit, we're due!

Inspired by Yellow Snapdragons....

While I don't exactly have a garden, I do have a vine/bush growing up the screen on one of the windows of my bedroom. As I was working on the lappy yesterday, I noticed this little guy sunning himself on the screen...

Gubenatorial Goodness

Stolen from some crazed astros fan's boyfriend:

We are less than a week away from the only televised debates of this gubernatorial election. That's right: the only chance you are going to get to see the people vying to lead Texas for the next four years going head-to-head will be this Friday night, before the UT-OU football game.

Democracy! The debate's going to be an hour long, without commercials, and will run from 7pm-8pm (central time). In addition to the statewide cable channel TXCN, the following stations will run the debate:

In Dallas WFAA
In Houston KHOU
In San Antonio KENS-TV
In Austin KVUE-TV

Here's my plug for Kinky: While he's not as polished as most of the candidates, he is the only candidate who comes right out and says exactly what he stands for: He's not going to run to the pollsters before deciding what bills to support. While I don't agree with everything he supports, at least I know what he stands for.

Everyone should at least watch the debates. With Kinky there, they should at least be entertaining.

Maybe I should go into trading stock...

I called it!

Boo-yah.

Hallettsville

So Friday, I went to Hallettsville, TX with Jeff, Mike, and Jordan. We met up with Aaron and Terry. It was Aaron's bachelor party, and I must say it, was the oddest bachelor party I've ever been to. Actually, I think this is the only bachelor party I've ever been a part of. That's sad. Oh well... I guess it means that relatively few of my friends are hitched, which, in my current situation, is pretty cool. Not that wives aren't cool, but they do tend to hamper the fun-factor of their husbands. (Don't take this as an indictment of women, but rather as an indictment of the whole married couple mentality, i.e. "no, I don't think I'll come with y'all on (insert random act of fun here)... I think I'll go home and hang out with my wife...")

Anyway, back to the bachelor party. We drank ourselves silly on $1.50 lonestars and played dominoes until all hours of the morning. Oddly enough, the only sober man was the bachelor. I found this out when I offered to buy him a beer. He declined politely, saying he'd given it up. Once during the night, I asked him if he was having fun, and with a big grin, he replied he was having the time of his life. He wasn't kidding either. Whoop for him.

Anyway, we woke up at 7 on saturday and stumbled across the street to the Knights of Columbus Hall in bustling Hallettsville, Texas. We paid our $40 entry fee and immediately jumped into the round robin. We ended up with a 3-2 record in the round robin, which was almost but not quite good enough to get us into the championship bracket. So, instead, we were in the consolation bracket, which dampened our spirits a little bit. However, we won our next two matches before getting eliminated in the final 8. Of all the teams the Austin 42 club sent to the team, we lasted the longest, which was heartening.

Anyway, there were two incidents of note during the tournament. If you're not domino literate, you may not understand everything in the next few paragraphs, but I encourage you to try. If all else fails, ask me, I'd love to teach you how to play.

The first happened during the round robin. We were playing some frat boys who, according to Jeff, were completely trashed during the last tournament. They were real class acts this time, let me tell you.

The incident involved a 2 mark hand, which I called because we were down and running out of time. We played the first three tricks normally, stacking the third trick on top of the first. I was just about to play my fourth domino on top of the second trick when, out of no where, I'll be damned if frat tool #1 didn't reach over and pick up the third trick to look at the dominoes it was covering. I don't care where you learned how to play dominoes, or even if you're just playing for fun. You cannot ever under any circumstances look under the stack. (Stacking the dominoes makes it more difficult b/c you've gotta remember what's been played by who). It's supposed to be more difficult because the hand is worth 2 marks.

Anyway, Jeff and I look at each other incredulously and then Jeff calls him out, awarding us the hand by default. For some reason, he can't believe it and then turns into a real asshole. Jeff shakes the dominoes for the next hand, and once he finishes shaking, both I and frat tool #2 draw our dominoes. Frat tool #1 doesn't draw, and immediately calls me on drawing bones out of turn, demanding Jeff to give his team a mark. To be fair, the rules for the tournament do state that players will draw their dominoes clockwise from the dealer, and he was sitting on Jeff's left. However, this is total bullshit for two reasons: A) In the previous hands, we did not follow this particular rule. (Usually, the only rule on drawing dominoes is the shaker must draw last... this was the rule we were adhering to for the previous hands) B) His partner drew before I did, so I could just as easily have called that on him.

Luckily, the tournament judge saw it our way, and we played the hand out. Frat tool #1 was fuming though. I was too. I wanted to play him again later so Jeff and I could stomp them.

If you're skimming, I'd suggest reading the next section a little more carefully. There's some tricky moral/ethical/gamesmanship issues here...

The second incident occured after our second win in the consolation bracket. The old guys we were playing caught onto our bidding scheme. I won't bore you with the semantics, but basically, during the bidding portion of the game, we had a little pre-arranged system worked out so we could provide information to the other partner as to what dominoes we're holding in our hand.

For example, a bid of 30 meant "I have doubles" A bid of 32-33 meant "I have a 10 point piece and help". This last bid was particularly helpful, because there are only two 10 count dominoes in the game. Knowing that your partner has one of them can be a huge help in deciding if/what/how much to bid.

The way it would work, I would look at my hand, see that I have the 5-5 and maybe another double. I don't necessarily have a strong trump suit, but I bid 33. My partner, who bids after me, looks at his/her hand, and if it contains the 6-4 (the other 10 count), knows that I've got the 5-5. (S)he no longer has to worry about any 5 offs, making the bidding process much simpler, usually allowing my partner to bid quite high.

One of the rules of the game is that there can be no physical indications of what is in your hand. In tournament play, you can't move your dominoes around, you can't tap your finger on the table, you can't do anything which might possibly be used as a signal to your partner. You CAN, however, indicate which dominoes you have remaining in your hand by the order you play. For example, playing a 5-4 on your partner's trump to let him/her know that you have the 5-5 is perfectly legitimate.

So, on one hand, it appears to be table talk, because you are communicating information about your hand to your partner. On the other hand, it seems a perfectly valid strategy within the confines of the game.

What do y'all think?

Diversity: Why Bother - Opinion article by Dr. Robert Gates, TAMU Prez.

Recently, yet another international grad student was assaulted behind Northgate by some rednecks scared of anything/different than themselves. They see a turban and get offended, much the same way they get offended when they hear someone speaking spanish. Dammit Aggieland, why do there have to be so many ignorant people living there?

Anyway, Dr. Gates (president of TAMU) wrote this in the opinion section of the batt... I thought I'd share...

Every now and then, there is an exchange of opinions in "The Battalion," or I get an email from a student, that reminds me that what I learned in CIA and the White House about diversity as a source of strength has yet to be learned by too many Americans, including some students at Texas A&M.

The belief that a diverse population bound together by a common spirit and shared ideals and principles is a source of great national strength is as old as the American Republic. Look at every coin in your pocket; it carries on it testimony to that belief. "E Pluribus Unum" - One from Many. Its meaning is unambiguous. Our national motto is both an enduring challenge and an enduring promise.

Further, the belief that each and every person has value is the touchstone of our democracy. The role of men and women from every race, ethnic group, nationality, religion and socio-economic background in building and safeguarding America - and in creating our unprecedented prosperity as a people - is the stuff of legend (and of history).

How, then, can anyone argue that exposure to a rich mixture of people and human experience is not an essential part of one's education? Surely a decent education must include getting to know and learn from people from different parts of Texas and the United States, from more than 120 countries, from different economic and social circumstances, from different political and cultural backgrounds, from different religions and yes, from different racial and ethnic groups.

I score pretty low on the "political correctness scale. I believe recognition, privilege - and admission to Texas A&M - should be based solely on personal merit, i.e., earned. And, that is, in fact, our admissions policy.

Accordingly, everyone here deserves to be here and deserves to be treated as a full-fledged member of the Aggie Family. That also means everyone of every background, belief and point of view deserves to be treated with civility.

Accepting diversity as contributing to one's education does not mean everyone has to agree on everything - or even that we all have to like each other. It does mean treating other members of the Aggie Family and our guests on campus with respect. It means making the "Aggie Family," the "campus community," real - not just rhetoric.

In this regard, as I have said before, being part of the Aggie Family also means looking out for each other. Frankly, I'm fed up with one or another our international students - Aggies all - getting assaulted every few months in the Northgate area. We've done a lot to step up police patrols and provide rides to students late at night. And, I refuse to believe that any of our students are the criminals who carry out such acts. I do believe, however, that every Aggie who passes through or lives in Northgate has a responsibility to keep an eye out for and report those who prey on members of our Aggie Family. The only place in Aggieland for these predators is in jail.

My bottom line: when you graduate, you will enter a world full of diversity. Knowing how to interact with and treat people who are different from you will play an important role in determining whether you are successful, whatever your career path. So, take advantage of your time here to learn about that world, make new friends from different backgrounds, learn how to deal with different points of view. That was my world in CIA and the White House. You have the advantage of unlimited opportunity to do that right here in Aggieland.

If you don't agree with what I have said, that is your right. But know this: We will not tolerate intolerance or incivility on this campus. Such behavior is not an Aggie tradition.

Gig 'em Dr. Gates.

From The Batt.

"Pimps be damned, it's harder out here for a Rangers fan."

Somehow (can't remember how), I ran across this article early in the spring this year. How prophetic it was.

Of course, it's not hard to be prophetic when the same damn thing happens again and again.

The Rangers are off on their final road trip of the season, hoping to stay above .500 for the season.

Damn you Rangers, why must I love you so?

heard on ESPN

in reference to Notre Dame's loss last week to Michigan:

"Happiness is a poor memory. If you can't remember what happened last week, you'll never be discouraged."

I like it :-D

Iran-ium

Transcript of press conference with the Iranian President...



He sounds coherent. I wish it were not naieve to believe him.

razors

I'm sitting here watching TV and doing a little bit of research...

There was just a commercial for some razor on TV. It had 4, count them 4, blades. I can remember a few years back, three was the magic number. Pretty soon, we'll all be shaving with venitian blinds. Not sure what the extra blades do, other than make it more expensive.

reciprocity

Ok readers...

I have been doing my part. I posted not one, not two, but six (6) posts this past week. With the exception of Caroline, not a one of you has commented.

Comments are half the reason I maintain this blog. C'mon, throw me a bone here :-P

Y'all are slackin...

mohawk

That's right, folks, I have a mohawk.

Canoe Racing!

Yes folks, I have ventured into the high paced world of canoe racing.

My friend Ginger asked me to be her paddling partner for the TX. Junior Water Safari race this saturday. It was a 16 mile race on the San Marcos River. We put in near the Lions' Club tube rental and ended up in Martindale 3 hours and 45 minutes later.

We got off to an excellent start and were ahead of most of the pack. We kept getting passed by people in single kayak-like canoes. I asked Ginger if this was something to be worried about, and she said no, they are usually much faster than 2-man canoes.

We managed the portages over the two dams pretty well, and were making good time, even keeping pace with a few kayakers.

Then, as we went under a bridge just underneath the Martindale Dam, I heard a distinct crack. We then ended up running aground on a rock and had to get out to get it unstuck. We took on a little bit of water, but it wasn't a whole lot so we kept going.

A few hundred yards downstream, Ginger suggested we pull over to dump the water. Quickly, we did and got back in the canoe and kept going. A few hundred more yards, Ginger notes how much water there still is in the boat, and wonders if we've got a hole. I turn around and look at the hull, and sure enough, we've got a sizable gash letting river water in.

We pull the canoe out of the water to quickly patch it with a food wrapper and some foam we cut off of the water-jug holders. Sadly, the patch is not very effective. It slows the flow of water into the boat, but it does not stop it. We continue to have to pull over every half mile to dump the water from our boat. We can't even go over shallow parts for fear that our makeshift patch will come undone.

All in all, we finish just 5 minutes behind our competition. We would have easily smoked them if we hadn't been towing half the river along with us. The hole in the boat makes for some lively conversation once we've pulled it from the river.

Free chilidogs are provided for all race participants. I eat waaaay too many... Life is good.

crack whores in Austin

Ok, now I've seen everything...

Vince and I had some friends staying with us in Austin for ACL and the Sufjan concert. Kit and I were in the living room watching some TV, and Daniel was outside talking on his cell phone. I went into the restroom. While I was in there, there was apparently a knock at the door.

Thinking it was Daniel, Kit opened the door. Standing outside was a woman in hippie garb (burka, sandals, etc...) She asked if she could come in. Thinking she was one of my friends, Kit let her in.

About this time, I walked back into the room. Her back was to me, so I thought that this was one of Vince or Kit's friends, but it soon became apparent she was not.

Her feet were dirty and she had a kinda desparate look on her face. Something right out of Requiem for a Dream.

She (probably) concocted a story about a black lady who was hassling her and how she just wanted to come in to get away from her. Being the naieve person I am, I kinda sorta believed her. I offered to let her use a phone or call the cops or something. She didn't seem to respond to that. She kept asking if there was a party going on, to which we responded we were headed to bed.

She then started repeating that she "could pay," and that she "was cool," and kept offering to turn us on. At this point we flat-out, categorically denied that ANY of us needed to be turned on by her. She was kinda agitated at this point and was walking further into the house, looking in all the rooms. I got her turned around and corralled her to the living room, right next to the front door. At this point, she sat down on the couch and started reaching in her bag.

By the time I figured out what she was doing, it was too late. A vagrant hippie crack whore was smoking a rock on our couch in our living room! I really didn't know what to do. Vince had retreated into the back room hoping the problem would fix itself. Kit was in the kitchen with an apologetic expression on his face mouthing the words "no physical contact," with which, I heartily agreed.

The moment she was done, I hurried over to the door and asked her to leave. Thankfully, she did. I locked the door behind her.

She kept wondering around the neighborhood for at least an hour, stoned out of her mind...

Was she casing the place? I hope not, but I think she was too high to do much of anything.

Should I have called the cops? Probably. Of course, she probably got picked up soon after.

I hope she's getting help. Drugs can f-up your life. For the rest of the evening, I kept thinking what her family must think about her... whether they know she's a druggie, if they even care, or if they even keep in touch.

Kinda sad really.

Menage a trois

And then there were three...

So.... I'm beginning to collect quite a harem... of bicycles...

Quite by accident, Josh told me of the UT bicycle auction which was, fortiutously (sp?), this afternoon. He was looking for a road bike, and I tagged along to possibly purchase another mountain bike, thus allowing me to take friends out mountain biking who don't have their own bike.

I ended up winning the first bike in the auction. Well, it's half a bike, because it's missing the back wheel, has gunk on the handlebars, and needs a new chain and gearset, but, all in all, I think I got a pretty good deal. It's fairly new and with a paltry $100-$150, I can have a totally decent bike. It's a Trek 4500, which new, goes for $450+. I paid $70. I kinda almost feel bad, because there was a guy who was bidding on it before I was, and he really wanted the bike. Every time someone bid, he'd up it by $5. His final bid was $45, and then I bid $70, which was apparently out of his price range. He didn't look like a starving student though...

When the auction ended, the lady wrote the wrong price on the ticket for me to go pay, so I COULD have walked out of there with my spoils of victory for $45. I really considered it, I really did. Especially since I'm doing UT a favor by taking this bike off their hands. But, it wouldn't have been fair to the dude I outbid. If he hadn't wanted the bike so much, I probably wouldn't have said anything.

Even still, I got a great deal.

In other news, I've come up with a name for my current mountain bike: Bruno. Bruno's a hoss and can take quite a beating. And he's not pink like Gertie.

We'll see what kinda name I come up with for this new franken-bike once I get him/her all put together again.

We'll miss you, you tough old boot

From Wikiquote

Ann Richards on How to Be a Good Republican:

1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault.


2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own.


3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.


4. You have to believe that AIDS victims deserve their disease, but smokers with lung cancer and overweight individuals with heart disease don't deserve theirs.


5. You have to appreciate the power rush that comes with sporting a gun.


6. You have to believe...everything Rush Limbaugh says.


7. You have to believe that the agricultural, restaurant, housing and hotel industries can survive without immigrant labor.


8. You have to believe God hates homosexuality, but loves the death penalty.


9. You have to believe society is color-blind and growing up black in America doesn't diminish your opportunities, but you still won't vote for Alan Keyes.


10. You have to believe that pollution is OK as long as it makes a profit.


11. You have to believe in prayer in schools, as long as you don't pray to Allah or Buddha.


12. You have to believe Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde were really faithful husbands.


13. You have to believe speaking a few Spanish phrases makes you instantly popular in the barrio.


14. You have to believe that only your own teenagers are still virgins.


15. You have to be against government interference in business, until your oil company, corporation or Savings and Loan is about to go broke and you beg for a government bail out.


16. You love Jesus and Jesus loves you and, by the way, Jesus shares your hatred for AIDS victims, homosexuals, and President Clinton.


17. You have to believe government has nothing to do with providing police protection, national defense, and building roads.


18. You have to believe a poor, minority student with a disciplinary history and failing grades will be admitted into an elite private school with a $1,000 voucher.

We'll miss you Ann... I remember being in 1st or 2nd grade when Ann Richards was running for Governor. I can't really remember who I was wanting to win, but all the other guys in my classes wanted Clayton Williams to win for no other reason than he was a guy and Ann Richards was a girl. So, being the little conformist that I was, I said I was pulling for Williams too, even though it didn't sit quite right with me. I remember Williams won the mock election we had in our elementary school by a pretty large magin...

I think we need more people like Ann Richards in politics... It keeps it interesting. Kinky anyone?

BSG

Ok, I'm a big dork... I am a BattleStar Galactica addict. It's a really nerdy, but really good show. I've been catching up with the rest of season 2.5 in preparation for season 3.0 which is coming out in October.

However, I am starting to have some serious reservations about the show. Well, it's not so much reservations about the show, but reservations about american-style television shows, as compared to Brittish television shows.

See, television shows in the states go on and on and on, milking every possible plot line until everyone's f-ing sick of it, at which, they have a big finale and sell the commemerative DVD box sets.

In this regard, I feel brittish television shows are superior. In my (very limited) experience, the show runs for no more than two seasons. They tell the damn story, or explore the damn characters, situations, or issues which are necessary or interesting. Once they've told it, they end the damn thing.

Case in point: The Office. The character of David Brent only has about 2 seasons worth of material in him. Any longer than that, he's just going to start getting really repetitive, unbelievable, and SAD! There were several interesting side plots, but none of them ever really hijacked the main premise of the show. Now, I really shouldn't talk about the american version of the Office b/c I haven't really been keeping up with it, but I can't help it. This is a perfect example of what's wrong with it. It seems to me that NBC is making the Jim/Pam love interest the main point of the show, which was never the case in the brittish version. Yes, we were all interested in the love side-story, but that's what it was, a side story! I'll bet they did some testing with representative audiences and found out that they could get the most people to watch if they made it into a Ross/Rachel type thing. F-ing capitalism should never be used to make artistic decisions.

A small disclaimer for the previous paragraph: I have only seen one DVD of the american Office, so I could just be taking things out of context.

Anyway, back to Battlestar: The story has completely morphed from the original premise. According to Mike, the main creative-force behind BSG has a 5-season roadmap for the story, but I'm having my doubts. They kept a character alive in a completely contrived way when it was obvious (to me, at least) they should have killed him/her. We'll see how it turns out when the third season begins, but my initial reaction to this was they were just trying to prolong the series to milk more cash out of the series before they cancel it.

Another Brittish TV show which I think did it just right. Fawlty Towers. Hi-lar-i-ous. John Cleese is maddeningly funny as a neurotic hotel owner. They only made 12 episodes. When I tell people this, they ask why they canceled it so fast. The thing is, if they'd made any more episodes, the jokes would have stopped being funny. There's only so many time Basil can chase Manuel into the kitchen with a stool and have it be funny.

I guess I favor the short-story version of television shows. Use all the words you need to tell your story, and not a word more.

Bah Humbug.

Canada, part deux

So the trip home was more eventful than I would have liked...

We flew into Pheonix just before a giant rainstorm (called a monsoon) hit. We landed, got off the plane, ran to our next flight, and then boarded just in time. We then proceeded to wait for 3 hours ON THE TARMAC for the lightening storm to pass. There are few things which bug me more than waiting in an airplane... By the time we actually took off, we were supposed to have landed already. Grr...

Anyway, it's good to be back home again. Traveling always does a number on my digestive track. I mean, I don't get sick or anything, but I don't think my digestive enzymes work nearly as well, 'cause in the words of Donkey, "there were some toxic gases eeking out of my butt." Maybe it was all the eating out and all the rich food.

In other news, I got my hair cut. Mary (the hot asian domino playing girl I've got a massive crush on) cut it for me. It'll take a while for my hair to adjust to it, but I'm hopeful.

I'm slowly but surely getting unpacked. Unpacking sucks almost as much as packing does.

Mahaffey will be in town on thursday. We're going to play an obscene amount of dominoes and drink massive amounts of beer. I'm stoked.

prediction

I'm saying it now... Mike and Miranda are going to end up together. It's going to take them a while to get together, but it's going to happen.

Washington

So we're in washington right now. we took the ferry into Anacortes on friday and chilled with Miranda's friend. He took me mountain biking in the Galbraith Hills. There are some freaking awesome trails up there. I rented a bike for $20 for the day. It was a really nice bike. I can't remember what kind it was but the list price was ~$2,000. I'll post a picture of it when I get back and get my disposable camera developed. The trails up there are a lot different than the ones in Austin. For one, there are a lot more really really tall trees and dirt. Not so many giant boulders. Anyway, there are a lot of crazy stunts that other bikers have built into the trails. Lots of them involve little ladders bridging over gullys and logs. I should have taken a few pictures of some of these crazy stunts. Needless to say, I didn't try many of them. The ones I did were fun though. Jarrett would have loved it.

I got to see Crystal and Blake, which was cool. We walked around downtown seattle for a little bit. I got my picture taken in front of Safeco field. Too bad the Mariners are on a road trip... I'd have liked to take in a game. Molly (their dog) was cute, but not so keen on walking so much, so she got carried.

We did the Seattle Underground tour... It was anti-climactic. Not that I felt I got completely cheated out of my $9, but it was not too terribly interesting. Our guide was rather weird.

We're going back to Anacortes tomorrow to go kayaking around the San Juan Islands. It should be really cool. And cold. I can't imagine the water temperature being more than about 50 degrees. Hopefully my camera won't get too wet.

Back in Austin on monday. It'll be nice to get back.

ciao

Canada, eh?

So I'm in Canada. It's really freakin' beautiful. The weather is crazy. It's August, and I'm cold outside. That's not supposed to happen.

The conference is pretty cool. Some of the talks are useful and informative. Others are quite soporific.

I met one of Dan's former students. He's now a professor at the University of Calagry. He seems pretty cool. Didn't have any good stories about Dan though.

We were walking around the harbor yesterday, and we saw a street performer's act. He was a juggler/comedian. He was really good and put on an excellent show. I gave him $5, and as we were walking away, Mike made the comment that he probably makes more in a year than we do. I agreed, b/c he gathered quite a large crowd and people were pretty generous. We walked further into the city for dinner, and returned via the same way a few hours later. There was another variety act at the same place. We stopped for a minute or so to see what they were doing. It seemed to be some sort of comedy troupe. However, they were using some of the same phrases/tricks/jokes to entice people to tip them. I.e. they both threw a hat up to a person in the top row to collect money from people up there. Anyway, it dawned on us that they were probably working for a company/guild of stree performers. I don't know why, but it sort of tarnished the image in my mind I had of the juggler. No longer was he the free spirit making his living scraping by on the generosity of strangers, but something akin to a corporate con artist... putting up the facade of the street performer to get more tips.

Then, I thought more about it. It shouldn't matter who he's working for, or whether or not he's a genuine starving artist, because he was really good. He was the best street performer I'd ever seen. His jokes were funny, his tricks were amazing, and he truly entertained me. He earned his $5. I wonder if I'm becoming an entertainment snob now that I've lived in Austin.

Oh well.

E-mail me with your address if you want a postcard from either victoria or Seattle. Crystal, you should call me. Actually, I should turn on my phone to see if you have left me any messages.

Nerd Post - CCD woes

It seems that the CCD camera I've been using in the lab has decided to become tempermental... The camera itself works just fine, but the shutter keeps getting stuck. Because there's a thermo-electric cooler on the CCD chip which keeps the CCD around -20 C, I think that one half of the shutter keeps getting frozen. I hope I don't have to take the damn thing apart. That would really suck.

moving sucks

I am FINALLY out of my apartment. I am so glad to be out of there. Not because I hated the place, but b/c I'm finished packing/transporting.

I'm going to get screwed on the deposit though, because I didn't clean the blinds, and the move-out instructions state that they'll bill me $25 for each blind they have to clean. And they're just the type of bastards to charge me $100 for the 4 blinds, even though I made significant effort to clean two of them.

Anyway, the new house is shaping up quite nicely. It's going to be an awesome party house. Details to follow on the house-warming party.

I have waaaaaaaay too much shit. When I unpack, I'm going to have a garbage can sitting right outside the door. I plan to fill it up at least twice before I'm done.

I am an AWESOME car mechanic!!

I started work on my car today around 4:15. At 10:30, I finished. It seems that my alternator decided to crap out, which sucks, because I bought a new battery before I bought a new alternator. I guess it's just as well, because I've had the battery for 6 years, so it was living on borrowed time anyway.

I really love the engineers at Pontiac. Really, I do. I mean, who else would have thought to bury the battery underneath not only the Wiper Fluid container, but also the air filter? This is a stroke of genius. However, I do fault them for this: the alternator is not nearly hard enough to take out. I really would have liked to cuss just a little bit more, and drop 7 nuts on the ground in the pitch black instead of only 3. C'mon, I was expecting more from you guys.

If you've not slept in 48 hours and haven't had much in the way of food, it's amazing what 3 beers will do to you.

I'll pack tomorrow after I go wash all the tree-sap off my car and drop off the old battery and alternator.

night night

Is it friday already?

Man... I'm tired... I didn't sleep last night b/c I was wrestling with IDL. IDL can go pee up a rope, for all I care. Actually, I'm just being pissy because I'm still learning it. The deeper and deeper I get into it, the more cool things I realize it can do. I think after I re-write my latest batch of codes, I'll be pretty good.

I took Gertie out on a ride with Eric on Wednesday. In case you're wondering, Gertie is the name I've decided to give my road bike. I'll post a picture of her later. She's black with pink lettering, and a very sexy bike indeed. I decided to embrace the pink rather than try to paint over it. This means I'm confident in my sexuality, right?

I'm moving tomorrow. Haven't packed a lick. Still need to fix my POS car. Hopefully it won't be that difficult to fix.

In other news, the squatter is off my couch! Not that I didn't enjoy Greg's company, but I think anyone would get tired of sharing a 1-1. Unless you're romantically involved. Even then, I'm not sure how that'd go.

time for lunch. I'm hungry.

procrastination

I'm here at work procrastinating by reading the Wikipedia list of baseball jargon and watching the Rangers blow yet another 4 run lead.

Anway, I ran across this entry, and it made me think back to my days in baseball.

Tools of Ignorance: Catcher's gear.

How true this is. Dammit, it was fun though.

Overheard in a Burger King

Wow... I'm sitting next to a crazy girl and her bf in Burger King. That's right, Burger King has free wireless in Austin, TX. (Did i mention I love this town?)

So far, she's been talking about the following things:

"I should just put up an ad on Craigslist and see if someone just wants to give me money, no strings attached. See, normal kids have people who do this. They're called Parents. Mine don't do that."

"I don't have any idea what Hezbolla is, nor do I care."

"I think fast food restraunts should have a scale right inside the door. If you're too fat, it kicks you out."

Crazy.

Say it ain't so...

Dammit Floyd Landis. I really really REALLY do not want to believe that you doped.

The tests are rather damning, but the rest of it doesn't add up.

I mean, he was tested 8 other times in the race, and none of those turned up positive. Testosterone seems to be a long-term effect steroid. There wouldn't be much use to just use it once.

They didn't publish the actual results of the test, but I think they should. Do they know all the effects of all the drugs he'd been taking? He's taking cortisone for his hip, and another hormone for his thyroid. And besides, he got drunk the night before. Does alcohol affect it? What if he got laid with a cheap french whore the night before? I'm sure that would do something to his testosterone levels.

That would be kinda embarrassing to admit though... especially since he and his family are strict Menonites.

I believe him.

My Mountain-Biking Mantra

While on the trail at Emma Long park last weekend, I came to terms with the fact, that indeed, I will probably break something if I keep this up. Not looking forward to that, but here's something I keep telling myself:

Everything the helmet doesn't protect will grow back.

Nerd Post - Point Spread Functions

Ok, as the title suggests, this will be a nerd post. Since my blog is named with an optics term, I figure I should probably write some science in here too.

Definition of Terms

• Point Spread Function: Measuring the spot created in the focal plane when you focus a beam of collimated light down to a point.


• Collimated: All travelling in the same direction. Laser light is collimated light.
  
• Grism: a combination of a grating and a diffraction grating. Splits up light into its component colors (aka wavelengths).


• Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM): A measurement of how steep a peak on a graph is. Imagine a mountain. You take the peak elevation, divide it by two, and go find two towns on opposite sides of the mountains at this elevation. Then, you measure the horizontal distance between the two towns. The smaller the distance, the steeper the slope.


• CCD: Charge-Coupled Device. In laymans' terms, a digital camera, just more expensive. The one I'm using has a cooler on it which can cool the chip down to -20 C. It's also $5,000.

Doug and I got the optics bench pretty well aligned and focused. Since our optics aren't achromatic, we have two focii for our two laser beams (one green, one red). We've got our camera lens on a linear adjustable stage so we can repeatably focus the camera on the two laser spots.

Anyway, once we focused the system, we inserted the grism that Doug's been working on. It's still got some plastic on it from the time when he accidentally melted some zip-ties in 180 C phosphoric acid. After two further rinses with the hot phosphoric acid, we've managed to get most of the plastic off, but there's still a little bit. Anyway, we were able to measure the FWHM of the PSF of the grism, and found it to be approximately 2 pixels, which is no worse than the FWHM of a flat mirror. This is pretty good, implying that our grism is not any worse than a flat mirror, which is good.

Tomorrow, I get to take it all apart and put a faster lens in so we can get more orders on the CCD chip. Then we get to measure the efficiency of the grating, i.e. how much light is reflected into the different orders versus how much light we shine onto the surface of the grating.

Road Bike! (Part Deux)

Yes folks, I have done it! I now own ~15 lbs. of aluminum, rubber, and probably some steel which have been fashioned into a mode of transportation. I am as giddy as a school girl.

Since my car is dead, I rode it to Ginny's tonight to play my leauge match. While it could be that I just normally kick ass, I'm pretty sure my stellar record this evening (3 wins, 0 losses, two of which were in leauge play) was due to the fact that I HAVE A ROAD BIKE!

I feel a bit like a little kid, not only because I'm still a little shaky on it, as the pedals are kinda funky, but also because I'm going to take it to work tomorrow and show it off. :-D

Fixing my car will have to wait, because there's not much left in my bank account right now. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to ride my bike everywhere. Oh darn.

Piece of Shit Car

So my car died today. Which sucks royally. I'm pretty sure the alternator died, but I think it took my battery with it, which sucks even more because the feng-shui masters at Pontiac thought it would be better to bolt the wiper-fluid container right on top of the battery. Maybe it pleases the Chi of the car, but it annoys the hell outta me. Eh... it'll give me an excuse to give my new bike a workout.

Road Bike!

Come monday, I will be the proud owner of a Trek 1200 road bike! I just have to draw out $450 of my hard earned cash and go pick it up. It's going to be awesome.

Jarrett and I went mountain biking today. It was a lot of fun. And f-ing hot. It must have been at least 100 degrees out there. I couldn't suck down water fast enough. I think I'm still a little dehydrated.

I think I'm getting over my fear of death and dismemberment on a mountain bike. While there are still drop-offs I don't think I'll ever be able to ride off of, I am getting braver and willing to take a few more plunges. And even the ones where I pull up short, I know that it's just a matter of getting a little more speed and leaning back a little further, and I'll be alright. I think I'll wait until after I buy a new helmet to try these though... I got my current one second hand, so it may have a history of which I'm unaware.

Courage is a bitch to build up...

-------------------------------
To a certain someone...

While you're not the reason I come to domino night, you are the reason I stay so long...

A night at the alamo

I. Love. The. Alamo.

They did a Queen Sing-a-long tonight. It was glorious. They played Fat Bottomed Girls, Killer Queen, Bicycle, Don't Stop Me Now, and to finish it all off, Bohemian Rhapsody. It was so cool.

If I were gay, I would be ga-ga for Freddy Mercury. As it is, I think he's pretty awesome.

Anyway, at the Alamo, I sat next to another astro student, and she grilled me on the tryst I had last semester with a certain other astro grad student. Kinda made me realize that I'd been a bit of an asshole about the whole thing... I should probably call/email/talk to her about it. Hopefully we can still be amicable about the whole damn thing.

I'm watching the office right now. It's solid gold genius. Ricky Gervis is a comedy god.

the cat has come back... playtime's over

So Dan (my advisor) gets back in town tomorrow.

I've been working... but I'm not sure it's been enough.

I've made progress, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to be able to publish the paper when Dan wants me to.

I'm nervous...

In other news, my friend who's sleeping on my couch just got fired. Seems the eccentric rich dude didn't want to pay him what he thought he was worth... Man... I hope he's gonna be able to find a new job before he signs his mortgage.

Found on the back of a cereal box

Q: Who would you call if you find Chicago, IL?

A: Baltimore, MD.


Think about it.

We live in an awesome neck of the woods...

Wow... that's really all I can say.



Tonight, Rebecca (friend from work) and I got paid $250 each to drag a few telescopes up to Possum Kingdom lake and show some rich old farts a few cool objects in the night sky while some real-estate moguls wined and dined them into purchasing their second or third million dollar homes. I can't say that I'd buy from them, but I'd definitely like a ranch or a lakehouse out here, at least before it gets totally yuppi-fied. (prolly too late, I know).

Anyway, Rebecca talked about the astronomy department and McDonald Observatory, and I gave a short tour of the summer sky (i.e. constellations, visible planets, scale of the solar system/galaxy). I managed to work in a short plug for my old A&M days, and I got a few whoops and a few cat-calls from some red raiders. After it got dark enough, we pointed the scopes at the sky and showed them some cool things (Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars, basically). Let me tell you, drunk people are rather entertaining to try to explain astronomy to them. Well... for a while... then, after the 4th time you show them where the north star is, they just get annoying.

Anyway, they wrapped everything up by 10:30, so we had to clear out. As it had been a long time since both of us had seen a decent sky, we went back to the hotel, stocked up on some bugspray and some red flashlights, and headed out down highway 16, until we got tired of driving and pulled off the side of the road.

When we got out of the car, we both started laughing almost hysterically... I have NEVER EVER seen a sky so dark. The Milky Way just pops out and smacks you in the face. We set up the Dobsonian telescope and took out a few binoculars. Jupiter was so bright, it almost hurt your eyes to look through the scope at it. I could see globular clusters with my naked eye. I now know more constellations than I ever knew existed, and can cross at least 10-15 Messier Objects off my list.

The Milky Way is really something. It's not something I can put into words. It's more than beautiful, it's more than humbling. I've never seen the milky way as clearly as I did tonight. We could even see the dust lanes. I was simply dumbstruck. Just looking with binoculars, I could see all sorts of cool stuff in the sky, and we were able to find quite a few of them with the scope. By far the coolest time I've ever spent stargazing.

If you've never seen the milky way, GO! Go to a DARK location. Preferably 60-70 miles away from any sort of civilization. Go to Ft. Davis. Go to Possum Kingdom Lake. Go anywhere.

I've never been more excited to be an astronomer. You guys don't know what you're missing out on.

Bike Thiefs Suck!

Yeah... So my bike got stolen last week. Through my own stupidity, really. I had my bike in the back of a friend's truck while we went to eat. When we finished, I hauled my bike out and headed home. The unfortunate thing was, somewhere between my apartment and his truck, I lost my bike lock. I returned to the parking lot and tried in vain to find it, but to no avail.

Anyway, I kept my bike inside for that night, and kept my bike in the library during the day. I kept this up for a day or so, until my friend Greg came to stay with me. He's sleeping on the couch, so I didn't want to crowd him, and I put the bike out on the rail, like I usually do. I even went through the farce of pretending to fumble with a lock and "lock" it to the rail.

This worked for a night. I was pretty busy the next day, so I didn't manage to make it to the bike store to buy a new one, and I was also holding out hope that my friend would find it in his truck.

I tried the farce for a second night, and it worked again. By the third night, I was pretty sure that I could get away with it again. However, I was indeed planning on buying a new lock. I even said to Greg as we walked past a bicycle store, "I need to buy a new lock." That very night, my bike was stolen from off my balcony...

I walked outside the next morning, and my heart sunk into my stomach. I've pseudo-lost my bike several times before, but that was just because I forgot where I parked it. There wasn't even a glimmer of hope that I might have parked it somewhere else.

So, I called the Po-po... I reported it as stolen. I guess I've got a shot, because my driver's license is engraved underneath the bottom bracket.

My guess right now is that a homeless guy took it. I've seen them joyriding on bikes which obviously weren't theirs before... Hopefully they dump it in a location the cops frequent.

Oh well... gives me an excuse to finally buy that road bike I've been wanting... it looks like there are some good deals on Craigslist.

Moral of the story: Inconvenience your friends or buy a damb lock.

Damn Government....

Well, it seems that the legislature has gotten a taste of their own medicine, and it doesn't look like they like it.

Bear in mind that I am an Astronomy grad student, so anything contained in this blog is pure speculation.

Anyway, it seems to me that the FBI's actions could VERY WELL fall under the jurisdiction of the Patriot Act. (Jill, other people of the legal persuasian, could you comment on this?) The senator (Jefferson, I think is his name) had been caught in a bribery scheme to bribe some Nigerian government official. Nigeria is in Africa, which is kinda close to the middle east (a lot closer than we are, anyway), which is a hot-bed of terrorism, right? So, couldn't the FBI claim that they were acting to protect our government from a terrorist threat?

I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but not an extreme one. The lawmakers are all up-in-arms about this "breach of the Constitution" when they have repeatedly used this hallowed document to wipe the mud from their boots after mucking around with our Civil Rights.

I agree, they should be upset at this over-stepping of constitutional powers, but I am really finding it hard to feel pity for them. After all, they basically gave the FBI a carte blanche.

Silly people...

Legalize Drugs

I just got finished watching an episode of Penn and Teller's show "Bullshit!". This particular episode was on the "War on Drugs". I have to say, they made some convincing arguments. There are a hell of a lot of similarities between the war on drugs and prohibition. And, from what little I know about prohibition, it seems like it was a phenomonally stupid idea. The more I think about it, the more the libertarian inside me comes to the surface.

Their section on medicinal marijuana was very good. Did you know that the Federal Government actually provides 7 (count them, 7) people with pot cigarettes? They're the vestiges of a medicinal marijuana program they started way back when. They actually showed a shot of one of the guys lighting up a joint right in front of the capital building. I grinned.

Legalizing drugs seems like it would alieviate a lot of society's problems. You'd immediately kill the black market, and a great deal of the criminal underworld would suddenly be out of a job. I suppose there'd be a little re-adjustment process, and probably the economies of a few latin american nations would suffer a bit, but I think that's a far cry better than all the people currently dying in drug gang turf-wars. The border patrol probably wouldn't have to pack heat while patroling anymore, since no more heavily armed drug traffickers will have to cross illegally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating putting crack vending machines in elementary schools. The money that now funds the DEA could instead be spent on educating people about the dangers of all the various drugs and rehab clinics.

Yeah, I know some people would OD and die, but doesn't that already happen with alcohol? And what about tobacco? At least if they're legal, we can regulate them.

Right now, I'm not exactly positive if I completely support legalizing drugs across the board, but I'm pretty positive I support legalizing marijuana. I've never smoked it, but from what I can tell, the side-effects are no worse than alcohol. Plus, I don't think there's a pot equivalent to alcohol poisoning.

serrano peppers

Note to self: (and anyone else who tries to make Thai food)

Serrano peppers are really freakin' hot! My taste buds can handle them, but my fingers and mouth cannot. I tried this Thai beef recipie, and it called for 14 serrano peppers. I only had 10, so I used them all. I had to "finely chop" the peppers and then grind them into a chunky paste with a mortar and pestle along with some garlic and onions. The directions failed to say that you really should wear gloves when chopping serranos, or that you should have a well-ventilated kitchen when you are stir-frying these peppers.

My lungs were suffering while I was making it, and my fingertips and lips feel like they are on fire now, even after taking a shower. Well, they don't exactly feel like they're on fire, they feel like they've been frozen and are thawing out by a hot fire. Not exactly pleasant.

The food was good though.

Get Kinky!!!

Kinky Friedman should make it on the ballot! He turned in almost 170,000 signatures, so now the secretary of state has to validate the signatures, which could take an extremely long time. I gave Mandy and Mom each a Kinky bumper sticker. Maybe I'm just being extremely naieve, but I think he's got a shot. If he were toeing the line with Rick Perry with just the normal voters (i.e. those who normally give a shit about Texas politics) then he'd stand absolutely no chance, but I think Kinky's banking on people who normally don't vote. To me, that's the beauty of his campaign. He's getting people involved in politics who normally try to steer clear of the quagmire. That's what democracy is all about.

I don't think that Carole Keeton-Strayhorn is going to be a rather large threat. If anything, she'll pull votes away from Perry, since she's a partisan republican in all but name, and seems to be quite well versed in the lingo of outrage (i.e. the press releases on her website tend to be quite bombastic and sensational... She's always "blasting" Perry, or "demanding" extra votes, or "condemning"... Smacks of politics if you ask me...). She also paid for over half of her petition signatures. Kinky got 90% of his with volunteers.

C'mon Texas... Get Kinky!

CD's I want

This post is primarily to jot down CDs that I really want. Just to give you an idea of my musical tastes.

• Bruce Robison
  
• Max Stalling
  
• the Dixie Chicks
  
• James McMurtury
  
• Led Zepplin
  
• Metallica - S&M
  

This is only a partial list, so I may update it later...

We Are the Champions!

Right now, there is a (probably) drunk homeless dude singing We Are The Champions outside my apartment window. There's not much else I can do, but shake my head and say "that's Austin for you."

Also, I've been spending WAAAY too much time in front of a computer. I need to get out more.

Also, the monochrometer that our group built for the instrumentation class worked like a charm!

Stolen from Yellow Snapdragons...

Accent: I say 'Ya'll", but I don't really think I have a texan accent

Booze: yup. Tom Collins is my friend. Also good are Redneck Mimosas (lonestar and OJ)

Chore I Hate: Cleaning the bathroom

Dog or Cat: Dog, but cats are cool too.

Essential Electronics: alarm clock

Favorite Cologne: I prefer to shower instead...

Gold or Silver: no preference

Hometown: Garland, Texas

Insomnia: possibly in like 4th grade, but I've since found a cure for that... CLASS!!

Job Title: Data Monkey (a.k.a. Grad Student)

Kids: Sure, why not (in like 10 years)

Living Arrangements: I live with me, myself, and I in a 1-1 stumbling distance from the Crown, Trudy's, and Campus.

Most Admirable Traits: I'm honest

Number of States Lived In: 1 (Texas)

Overnight Hospital Stays: 1 (see my post on snowboarding...)

Phobias: singing or dancing in public

Quote: "There are only two things that I know are infinite: Human stupidity and the Universe... and I'm not sure about the Universe." -- Albert Einstein

Religion: Agnostic

Siblings: 1 sister

Time I Wake Up: 20 minutes before class

Unusual Talent or Skill: I can flip my pen around my thumb and back again... I know... not really unusual, but I like it.

Vegetable I Love: Broccoli

Worst Habit: Procrastinating

X-rays: Teeth, and I think they took one when I had my concussion (see hospital stays)

Yummy Foods I Make: Spagetti, although I'm trying to learn how to cook Thai food.

Zodiac Sign: Don't ask me... I'm an astronomer, not an astrologer...

They only boo in new york

So, if you don't know, I'm a bit of a baseball fan. My team is the rangers, which means I'm perrenially disappointed. Anyway, their achillies heel has ALWAYS been their pitching. Pick a year, any year, and the offensive numbers have pretty much ranked in the top 10 in the majors, but their pitching staff likes to hang out near the basement....

Anyway, we have this closer... Francisco Cordero... He was pretty good for us last year. In fact, he was an all-star in 2004. He's run on a spat of hard luck lately... he's blown 4 of 7 save opportunities. It's gotten so bad that fans are BOOING him!!! BOOING!!! This is TEXAS!!! You DON'T BOO THE HOMETEAM!!! You can be less than pleased, but you don't BOO! Especially pitchers. Pitchers are such skittish creatures anyway, and if you boo them, the mental problems just get worse.

I am ashamed that people like this patronize the Ballpark.

C'mon Cordero... You can pull through this.

Screw all you fair-weather fans.

Jinjitsu master

I saw jinjitsu master again today. He was on the wrong side of the street riding a bike he'd obviously stole. He had some of his possessions over his shoulder. As I passed him, I heard him grumble to no one in particular (rather loudly, I might add) "I don't have any money, and that really pisses me off!"

He's one of those homeless guys you don't really want to have anything to do with. I've met a few, and some of them you can actually have a conversation with. Not this dude.

when I get my house

I will get a dog. A mutt from the pound. If it's a boy, his name shall be "Stinky Peterson". I will give you props if you can tell me where the name stinky peterson comes from. And no, it's not Arnold, it was somewhere else first. (really, give me some credit... I do not watch little kids' cartoons.)

Not sure what I will call my dog if it's a girl...

SExtractor

There's a computer and a scanner on the 16th floor which I use to scan in homework solutions for the class I TA. I was up there this evening scanning in a hw assignment. When I got done scanning the images, I had to open up the directory where it dumps the file in order to convert it into a PDF. Anyway, there's a file in that directory which made me do a double take. Yup... it's called sextractor.pdf. It took me a little bit to work up the courage to open it, but aparently, it's a manual for a program called "Source Extractor" The dude who wrote it is french, so I guess sextractor doesn't translate, but damn...

I found the following qutoe on the second page of the SExtractor manual:

"Back in the early nineties, the purpose of SExtractor was to find a comprimise between refinement in both detection and measurements, and computational speed. By today's standards, SExtractor would be more accurately defined as a "quick-and-dirty" tool."

I can't decide which would be more funny... if this guy is old and frumpy and has no idea what it translates to, or if he intentionally named it such...

UPDATE!!
-------------------------------------------------
I think we can rule out him being old and frumpy. His name is Emmanuel Bertin.



This is him. He doesn't look old and frumpy. Well, at least not old. Not to imply that all old people are frumpy. Actually, some of the un-frumpiest people I know are getting up there in age.

Hart Hall, how I miss thee

A friend reminded me via his IM away message of the Hart Hall grode yell.
I lived in Hart for three years in undergrad. It was the "pride of central side", as it was smack dab in the middle of campus. My first year there was the last year without air conditioning. I know, the texas climate in the summer is nearly unbearable, but it was doable, especially since the price was right. It was $700 a semester. I pay nearly that much right now for 1 month's rent. It wasn't so bad after you got the fans cranked up and were walking around in your underwear taking cold showers every few hours. It was one of the oldest dorms on campus, and since it was the cheapest living option, it attracted... well, shall we say, a different class of clientelle than did the modular dorms. The thing about Hart was, it had a fairly high retention rate. It kinda grew on you... kinda like the mold in the bathrooms. If you didn't manage to get out there after your first year, you were pretty much a lifer. I had some interesting roommates while in Hart, but if you've known me long, you pretty much know that.

Grode yells were a holdover from bonfire. You did them with your dorm to get yourself fired up for cut or stack or any other bonfire related thing. Your dorm was like your family, albeit a smelly one. Your dorm was the coolest, while any other dorm on campus was stupid and full of 2%-er's. Grode yells were basically the aggie yell version of the Aristocrats joke. The point was to be as rude and offensive as possible, making fun of other dorms/areas of campus. I think Hart had one of the best. Hart's rival was Walton, the other non-AC dorm on campus (at least when I entered). They were on Northside and were basically A&M's animal house. Needless to say, for those of you with delicate eardrums, I would advise not reading the rest of this post.




*DISCLAIMER!!* The following yell is VERY VERY DIRTY!!! DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET OFFENDED!



Hart Hall, f*** 'em all
p****, c***, and c***.
Grab a t**, suck a s***
sure is fun, but tastes like s***
Through the ramps, into bed
give us h*** until we're dead.
F*** you Walton, suck our b****
wish you could be Hart f***'n Hall

Whoop!

the other shoe....

So.... as I gather from the comments to my last post, there are a fair amount of people wondering what happend to the girl I was dating...

Well, to make a long story short, it never really got off the ground. We kinda mutually agreed that we were not the right people for each other. She is a sorority girl, and I am definitely not a frat guy. Now we get to see if it gets awkward. We never bothered to have "the talk" to start the relationship, so we didn't really have "the talk" to end it. So, in a way, it's like it didn't happen. I hope we can stay friends. I'd hate to not get invited to poker night anymore.

So what else is new?

Vince is coming here for Grad School. He's sawing logs on my futon right now. He's in town looking for apartments. I'm trying to convince him to live near me. Possibly with me. As far as buying the house goes, I don't know if I'll be able to actually "buy" a house, as I'm not sure if I could get qualified for a large enough loan. Mom gave me a ball park estimate for what I could qualify for, and I'm not sure I'd want to live there. Who knows... I'll keep looking, but the places I will probably end up being able to afford will probably be in some pretty shady neighborhoods. If that's the case, I think I'll try to move into a house with Mike D. and possibly someone else somewhere here in Hyde Park.

Sarah C. came down during spring break. It was nice to see her again. We went to Trudy's and drank some Mexican martinis and had a right old time. I got to meet Matt, her boyfriend, a peruvian dude in some sort of Psych grad program (I think). Sarah kept saying that she didn't want to get married, and that everyone she knows who is married is miserable. Matt and I agreed, but I don't think Sarah quite believed herself :-P

Mandy is applying to grad schools, and she wants to go to Texas State, which is just a little south of here in San Marcos. She came down to visit it and stayed with me for a few days. Luckily she wasn't three sheets to the wind on bourbon again this time.... :-)

I house/dog sat for Mike a few weeks ago. I'm glad I don't have a puppy like Zeus. He's going to be great when he grows up and chills out, but he is a holy terror right now. You have to pay attention to him 100% of the time or he goes crazy.

I got to meet the creater of PhD comics (Piled Higher and Deeper) Jorge Cham. Very funny... and yet so true.... We went out after his talk (entitled "the power of procrastination") to 6th street and shot the bull. Fergal told some funny stories about the astronomy department and the observatory. I wouldn't be surprised if some of our antics make it into the strip.

Taxes suck.

Well, not so much if you're getting money back, but filling the forms out sucks just the same.

Alright, time for breakfast.

should I tell?

So... this girl that I'm considering dating... well, I guess we are kinda dating already, but we haven't had "the talk" so I guess I'm technically still single. I have issues with dating her. #1, she's also in the astronomy department. #2 I'm not sure if she's exactly my type, but I'm willing to find out.

#1, I guess this isn't so much of an issue, but at the beginning of the fall, I rationalized (to myself) not going out with a classmate by saying I didn't want to date inside the department. Of course, as time went on, I realized that this said classmate is totally not my type, so I guess I can relax this requirement. Plus, other people date w/in the dept and it seems to work out ok...

#2, At first, I didn't think that she would be my type, but I'm beginning to doubt that first impression.

Eh... oh well... No one else in the department knows about this blog, so I think I'm safe. Well, people (her included) know that this blog exists, but I'm not sure I'm ready to toss her the keys and say "here, look at all the skeletons in my closet!" Maybe if it ends up going somewhere, but we'll see. She keeps bugging me to give her the link, but so far I haven't relented. She's probably thinking that I'm writing soft-core porn entries about her and that's why I don't want to show it to her.

Eh... we'll see.

Damn the torpedos!

My dad once told me, in regards to playing baseball, "Do it with reckless abandon." The point being, if you're going to play, for chrissake PLAY! Don't worry about the score, even if you're behind by 15 runs in the 3rd inning. Don't worry if the ump has been squeezing you all game. Give it your all and try your damnedest. Don't worry about making a fool of yourself or getting hurt. Well, He probably didn't mean the part about getting hurt, but it sounds good. Moonlight Graham in Field of Dreams said it pretty well, I think, talking about sliding into third.

I think love (and to a lesser extent, cooking) should also be approached in this manner. When I fall, I fall hard. I've been hurt a few times, but in retrospect, it's been worth it. I guess I'm still deciding whether or not the 15 day DL is long enough to recover. I'm wondering if the 60 day DL might be better for me. I mean, I'm looking forward to getting back out there, but somehow I don't think my heart will be in it for a while yet.

Kudos if you can catch all the allusions.

sleep deprivation

Yeah... I've only slept an hour and a half in the past 36 hours. Damn NASA proposal. I haven't eaten anything of substance since dinner yesterday except for peanut butter (yep, straight out of the jar) honey, and a few chocolate caramel type things I pilfered from the secretary's office.

The good thing is, all the crap I am supposed to know is kinda starting to make sense. The bad thing is, I'm so sleep deprived that I'm not sure I can keep things straight.

Tomorrow will be fun. I really hope I get to sleep. Not holding my breath on that one, but here's hoping.

I'm going to see Hayes Carll with Bridgett tomorrow night. It should be fun, if I'm still conscious at that time. Shit, I wonder if I need to get tickets.

Gotta love Austin....

Well, the good news is that it looks like my health insurance will pay for most of my adventure in Zermatt.

After spending a week in Switzerland where the temperature rarely got above 40 F, I find it rather amusing when I see sorority girls bundled up with their fuzzy Ugs (aside: I think Ugs are just about the UGliest things on the planet.) a sweater, a scarf, and a faux-fur lined jacket walking around campus when the temperature is a balmy 55 F. Maybe I'm still thawing out, but I think these people are wimps.

So there are a lot of homeless guys who live around my apt... I was walking to the Crown last night when one of them approached me. He had a bottle of something in his hand.
Homeless dude: -jabbers incoherently-
Me: I'm sorry?
Homeless dude: Do you know... Do you know who the fuck I am?
Me: No......
Homeless dude: I'm a Jinjitsu master... I can take you to Area 51 and KICK YOUR ASS!!
Me: .....

At that point, I walked away. He followed for a few steps and then got distracted and went off in another direction...

It may be wishful thinking, but I think there are several (read: 2 maybe 3) girls who may be interested in me... Maybe not... Do not need another relationship anytime soon, but some fun would not be a bad thing either...

I'm coming home!!!

Yes, this time tomorrow, I will be home!!!

Not Austin, but Garland!!!

I have never been so excited about a trip...

I went to Zurich for the last time today. It was cool, but I am definitley missing home.

I got a real swiss recipe for cheese fondue from my uncle today. I think I will try it sometime when I am back in Austin.

My main worry right now is about my health insurance. I'm not sure if the penny-pinchers at BCBS will spring for a $2600 care-flight off the mountain, or how much of my $1500 hospital bill they will cover. At best, they cover it all 75% after a $500 deductible. That's still a helluva lotta money for a grad student to pay off. I guess I will have to kiss my dreams of homeownership goodbye, at least for a year or so, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it then. Who knows, maybe I'll get a second job. I could always hire myself out as a tutor. I think I can get $20/hr from some of these rich Austin kids. Maybe I'll hit up a frat or a sorority.

My main beef with growing up in insurance. I hate it.

Not many memories have returned regarding my ill-fated day on the slopes. I do remember talking to two guys in the hostel the night before my accident. I think I went snowboarding with one of them, so I emailed the hostel and they gave me the two guys' email addresses. Maybe one of them will know what happened to me. Until that happens, I've gotta come up with a great story.

Headaches

if I remember correctly, getting a concussion hurts...

I went to Zermatt. I rented a snowboard. I woke up the hospital. Apparently, I even got careflighted.

More to come as I remember it.

Back in Austin next wednesday

Ich bin von Trub

Fri 06 Jan 2006 08:42:12 PM CET

Mom and I left Basel for Trub today. We drove through several small little towns until we got here. It is TINY! We're staying at the Gasthof zum Lüwen which is a tavern/hotel. Our room is right above the party room, and it's friday night, so I'm not sure how much sleep we'll get tonight.

My mother's family, the Wüthrich's, came from Trub. My great-great-grandfather moved to East Prussia (what is now Poland) and then the family returned back to Switzerland once the Russians invaded during WWII. Apparently a lot of people come from here. According to my mom, over 250,000 people can trace their heritage back to this tiny little village.

Walking around the town at night, we found a list of famous families from Trub and their associated coats of arms. I found the Wüthrich coat of arms, as well as Tanner (the last name of one of my uncles back in the states). A coat of arms of note for all you aggies is Baumgartner. Isn't that one of the yell leaders' names? Or wait... was that T-Baum?

We walked up and down the main road in Trub to get a feel for the town. It's a very small community waaaay up in the foothills. There's still about a foot of snow on the ground, and the clouds cleared off before the sun set. It's so clear up here. Still a bit light polluted, but you can see more stars than I have in quite a while. The moon was waxing about 1/2 way full, but the light reflecting off the snow made it so bright you could see for miles, even though there wasn't a streetlight around.

We walked up to a cheese factory where all the farmers were bringing their milk. Seriously, we were passed by at least 15 cars pulling little trailers with milk cannisters. They backed up to the dairy and a guy with a big tube opened the cannisters and sucked all the milk out. I'm assuming they get paid by the liter or something.

We had dinner in another little hotel down the street from ours. Mom and I had Rostig, which is fantastic. I am so totally making it back in the states. Basically swiss hash browns, but much better than anything you can get at IHOP.

We're going to see Tante Kätie tomorrow morning. Or, rather she's coming to see us. She lives up on top of one of the mountains. We came to see her and her husband Ernst last time we all were here in '98. Ernst and Kätie Wüthrich lived in the Wüthrich family home on this hill up until a few years ago when they sold it. In the Swiss tradition, ownership of the family farm is passed down to the youngest son, when the parents grow old. The parents move to the Stückli, the "Mother-in-law" little house near the farm for the rest of their days.

Ernst and Kätie only had one son, and he could not find a woman who wanted to live with him up on the mountain. Apparently, he got so disparaged that he committed suicide, leaving them with the care of the farm. They kept the farm for as long as they were able, and then moved to the Stückli, and sold the farm. Ernst passed away in the past few years, leaving her. It's kinda sad, really.

Anyway, the roads are a bit uncertain, and we don't have a 4wd vehicle (I think we're lucky to have 4 cylinders) so she is coming down the mountain in her 4wd car/truck/whatever. She's 80 some odd years old, and still quite vivacious. Last time we were here in 98, she was in her 70's, and we went hiking with her. She left us panting in the dust. She said that she was expecting a shipment of heating wood in tomorrow so she was going to be stacking wood all tomorrow, but she will reschedule to come see us. Amazing woman. We're kinda torn between making her come down the mountain in her 4wd to come get us and not seeing her at all. I think it would be in poorer taste to not see her now that she knows we're here, just 10 km away. She seems pretty excited to have visitors.


Sat 07 Jan 2006 12:54:50 AM CET

After dinner, I went out walking a bit further north in town. Once the moon went down, the skies were absolutely gorgeous. I even saw a shooting star, and what I am assuming was the Northern Lights, but I could be wrong.

In the other part of the hotel, there was a band playing tonight. I stopped in and saw them for 12 CHF and had a beer for 5 CHF. The were called the Tornadoes, and on the wall was a promotional poster. It said: Tornadoes: Die Partie Band! They were actually pretty good, for a swiss cover band. Among the songs I heard:
Living on Tulsa Time (Pronounced Tool-saw)
West Virginia
Rock around the Clock
Blueberry Hill

There was a dance floor and there were some couples dancing. Polka and jitterbug, mainly. They were pretty good. If you could mute all the sounds, you would have sworn you were in Texas. You had your preppy beautiful-people table, your bitter 35-ish poker night widows, your crowd of young punks, and even a few lesbians. I guess the world is a pretty small place.

SauerKraut

to borrow a phrase from Weird Al's song "Albequerque,"

I HATE SAUERKRAUT!!!

It is a German tradition to eat sauerkraut for new years, sort of the same tradition as Black Eyed Peas, so I partook. They didn't tell me that the American diet doesn't prepare your intestines at ALL for the mayhem which ensues. The Sauerkraut was very good, but I guess it was too good, because I had too much... Seriously, 2006 got off to a very painful start. From 9 in the morning until 9 at night, I was in various states of agony.

After a night of pretty bad sleep, I felt much better. Rather weak, because I hadn't been able to eat anything the previous day.

I'm getting better at the whole driving of a standard transmission. I drove from Ottersheim to 3/4 the way to Basel with basically no problems. On the Autobahn, I drove 160 kmph for a little bit. That's right, my American friends, 100 mph!

European drivers seem to have no respect for the speed limit. I mean, even more so than American drivers. We usually go 5-10 mph over. Europeans go easily 20-30 kmph over the speed limit. I think it's probably because you never see Police cars. I've only seen one Polizei car during my entire trip here. They probably don't enforce speed limits very much here.

We just got back from a whirlwind trip of Germany. We spent a night in Colmar in Alsace in France. A.k.a. Little Venice b/c there is a river going through town. Very pretty. Apparently, there was quite a heavy german resistance during WWII. The american General wanted to call in an airstrike and level the town. The french general convinced him not to because of the historical importance. Saving the town through house-to-house fighting cost over 2000 american lives... Beauty and freedom has a price, I guess.

Colmar is the birthplace of Frederic Bartholdi, the architect who designed the statue of liberty. When we were leaving the town to go to Straussburg, there was a miniature (well, still rather large) model of the statue of liberty. I took pictures.

We went to Straussburg the next day. Very old, very huge cathedral. It was started in the 1190's... not finished until the 1700's...

Went to Ottershiem for a few days to spend time with my aunt and uncle there. Also saw my cousin's kids again. I taught Ricky how to play Spit.

Spent New Years with Tillmann and company. Had fun playing with their dog Jula. She's a giant dog, but an attention sponge.

After eating new years' eve dinner (including sauerkraut) and watching Dinner for One with the Schwabes, Tillmann and I went to Christoph's for a New Years Eve party, where I ate more sauerkraut. God, even thinking about sauerkraut makes my stomach churn right now.

When the clock struck midnight, we all went outside to watch the fireworks. I swear, New Years in Germany must be the most dangerous place in the world. It's like a war zone here. EVERYONE buys fireworks! And not just a few, but armloads! The streets are littered with burnt out bottle rockets the next day.

Don't eat the yellow snow....

Went hiking in the foothills yesterday. It was high and cold enough to support some snow, and wow.... it was amazing. Exactly what I picture a "winter wonderland" like. We borrowed some sled from my uncle and clambered up the hill for about a half mile or so to a restaurant on the top of the hill. We had to dodge some skiers who were coming down the mountain. I had a bottle of cider at the top. It was very good, not as sweet as some of the ciders we have stateside.

We sledded the entire way down. We (my cousin, Mandy, and I) stopped about half way down to have a snowball fight. I am happy to report that although Mandy had been talking smack the entire trip about how she was going to beat me in a snowball fight, she's all talk and no game. I trounced her quite handily and rubbed snow in her face for good measure. It was lots of fun.

Along the path, there were small patches of yellow snow. I only saw 4 or 5 dogs the entire trip. Seriously, like every 20 yards or so. I guess it was good because you knew which areas of the snow to avoid.

Once we were back at my Aunt/Uncle's house, we had dinner (pork chops, noodles, and some sort of mushroom sauce). After dinner, my uncle and cousin taught us how to play Jass (pronounced "Yah-suh"). It's like 42 or pitch, but on crack. It was very interesting. I wouldn't mind playing some more, but you need a special deck.

We're going to Alsace today, although it's taking forever for us to get moving. My mom has spent 3 hours looking for her power converter for her curling iron.

Pictures!

I'm starting to upload pictures to my utexas website. Keep checking this page:
https://webspace.utexas.edu/cpd226/Pictures/Trips/Switzerland05/Pictures.html

Snow, here I come

I'm heading up to my Aunt and Uncle's place in Wald (the Forrest). Apparently, it is snowing like a mug up there. I may or may not have access to internet. If not, I shall record it on my laptop and post later.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Weihnachtszeit

Fri 23 Dec 2005 12:09:09 PM CET

I am on my way to Winterthur with Mom. She's driving the rental car. I'm slowly learning how to handle a stickshift. I think I made a large breakthrough today when I realized that you don't have to completely disengage the clutch when backing out slowly. It's ok to coast with the clutch half-engaged.

In Europe, you can never make a right on red. However, when you're at a red light and it's about to change to green, the yellow light comes on for a few seconds. This would probably be a bad thing in America...

The snow is melting. Sad, but who knows, maybe there will be more snow.

Switzerland is fighting entrance into the E.U. because of the Immigration policy, I think. Switzerland only has 4.2 million citizens, and there are 2.3 million foreigners here.

Fri 23 Dec 2005 07:06:06 PM CET

Returning from Winterthur and the Einstein museum.

Boy, the swiss roll up the sidewalks at night. If you want to do some shopping, do it BEFORE 6:30, because all the shops seem to close at that time. I was in a Kiosk looking for some postcards, and it was a good thing I got in when I did, because not 3 minutes after I entered, one of the ladies working the store went outside and started getting the gate ready to close. I hurried up and bought 4 postcards.

Not that I mind people working sensible hours, but I'd bet it would be hard for me to get anything done over here. Hell, it's hard for me to make it to the liquor store before 9. And don't get me started on banks!

The Einstein museum was pretty cool. They had a bunch of letters and documents regarding his life. The man was a genius when it came to science and math, but his social and marital skills seem to be lacking something.... a lot of something.

When he married his first wife (who was the only girl in his undergrad class, I think) he wrote a sort of contract. Basically his wife had to do everything house-related (including keeping his desk in order) fix him dinner, expect no intimacy, and ask no questions. Maybe that was the norm for the day, but damn...

The rest of the Technorama, or the Swiss Science Center was really cool. It totally put the Science Place to shame. There were a couple of really cool ferro-magnetic fluid demonstrations which were completely astonishing. By increasing the magnetic field in the coils around the fluid, it was possible to shape the fluid into a sinusoidal surface. I'll try to post some pictures.

We stopped in a chinese food place for a little bite to eat before we headed home. Good to know chinese food (and by chinese food, I mean chinese restaurant food) is pretty much universal. It tasted about the same as I remember in the states. Mom and I split a sampler and discussed where to go next.

We went down the main shopping pedestrian mall. It was pretty cool. We bought something for Mandy and for Aunt Helga and window shopped before we had to turn back to the car and head home for dinner.

The highways here look pretty much like the highways in the US. The speedlimit signs look different though.

I love the way the lights from all the houses up on the hillsides looks at night. Maybe it's just because I grew up and have always lived on flat ground, but seeing houses on hillsides is pretty cool to me. Also cool is mist/fog and downward pointing streetlights seen from a distance.

ich möchte sprechen deutch

I really really really wish I spoke German. I feel like such a dork not being able to speak the language.

Although, I am getting better. I don`t know if I`ll be able to hold conversations before I leave, but if I keep hearing people talk, I`m fairly sure that I will be able to undestand what people are saying.

Some german words I`ve picked up so far:

Unglaublich - Unbelieveable
fertig - ready
kenn - to know
Ich bin saat - I am full! I can eat no more!!
genau - of course
bis - until
bis spater - until later

I think after 2 more weeks, I should be fairly good at understanding german. We`ll see how it goes...

Swiss girls are so pretty... I want one... Of course they seem like they would be rather high maintenance too... rats...

The snow is still here. I am definitely still winning the snowball fight.

I almost bought some running shoes today. I may go back tomorrow and buy them because I do need some exercise. I do end up walking quite a bit, but with all the food that they are forcing down my throat (well, they don`t have to twist my arm tooooo hard) I don`t think it`s doing any good.

We went to see the grave of James Joyce today. He was a very tall and thin man, at least if you take his statue literally. Then, we went to the Zürich Zoo. It was a really cool zoo. The penguins were pretty cool, but smelly. I liked the elephants. Especially the baby one. They were eating twigs and sticks like it was nothing. I guess they have some pretty tough stomachs.

I think either tomorrow or some other time I`m going to some small little town east of Zürich to an Einstein exhibit. It should be pretty cool.

Tenative new year`s plans are to be in Wörms with Tillmann. It should be lots of fun.

bis spater...

Switzerland!

Yes, folks, I am writing from Zurich, Switzerland!

After spending a day traveling, my mom and I arrived at the Zurich airport. We flew from DFW to JFK, and after a 4 hr layover, went from JFK to Zurich. The flight from DFW to JFK was pretty good. I managed to doze a little on the plane. Such was not the case on the flight from JFK to Zurich. I can never sleep on overnight flights, I don't know what it is. There were some interesting charachters too. My mom ended up sitting next to two orthodox jewish people. The guy had long curly sideburns and everything. And, in the morning, he stood up, put on his prayer cloth (or whatever it's called) and started wrapping what looked like a black leather strap around his arm. He was dressed in a black suit with a black yarlmulke and a black top hat.

After we landed, we followed the maze to the baggage claim. We had to take a metro-type thing from the terminal to the baggage claim. It was kinda wierd. It was a subway-DART-type-thing, but there was no driver! Completely automated.

My family didn't recognize me at first without my hair. It was good to see everyone again. They were really happy to see mom, and she was really happy to see them. It was also good to see Mandy again. Hadn't seen her in 4 months or so. She's gone music crazy and bought a concertina (an accordian type-thing) and some sort of irish drum. Silly girl.

IT'S SNOWING OVER HERE!! There is snow on the ground and it's the good snow for making snowballs too! I'm totally winning the snowball war with my sister. There's at least 2 inches of snow, which is an entire inch more than I have seen previously.

I love european breakfasts. They are so good. Bread, jam, cheese, and nutella.

The trees here are so tall. Even normal trees dwarf the ones we have in Texas.

I'm going to see if there are any Einstein related museums here in Zurich. He went to school here and also worked here as a patent clerk.

More to come later, especially if I can find a way to transfer pics from my camera to my laptop. I think I forgot my cable. May have to go buy a new one.