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.

memoirs of a TA

So I caught four of my students cheating on homework today....

It was actually 2 pairs, but it sucked either way.

I grade the homeworks, so I was going through grading, and I noticed that there were two papers which had remarkable similarities between them. One belonged to student X, the other belonged to student Y. Student X is a senior engineer. [S]he's very smart, on top of things, and always come asks questions about the homework during office hours. Student Y is a freshman Astronomy major, soon to be lib-arts major. [S]he could be smart if [s]he actually tried to apply his/herself, but find the math inherrent in Astronomy an affront to his/her sensibilities. Both papers scored a perfect 50. Extraneous characters showed up in exactly the same places on each homeworks. Both used exactly the same method, wrote exactly the same equations (down to sig. figs), and got exactly the same numbers. It was too obvious. I remember helping Student X with this homework, so I know that Student X did the work, which does not leave much to the imagination as to how Student Y got the same answers.

So, I email the prof asking for the procedure/policy for cheating, not revealing that I actually have a case. He immediately emails back with a Zero Tolerance policy and demands to know who it is. I'm a little hesitant because I know both student X and Y fairly well from office hours, and I feel like I'd be betraying them, but then realize that I'm getting paid to TA not to be their friends. I email him back revealing X and Y, make copies of their homeworks for record keeping purposes. I stress what I think to be the case, that Student X did the work, and Student Y probably did the copying.

He immediately emails X and Y informing them that they will receive 0s for this hw, and anything further will result in reporting to the Dean. He emails me and asks me to compare the homeworks of students A and B, because he suspects they are cheating/copying as well. Lo and behold, it's another set of carbon copies. Student A did the work, while B copied. B, however, cannot copy very well, because where A's read "No, you cannot see it two months later", B's read "No, you cannot see it two mores later." I shit you not, beligerent reader. If you're going to cheat, at least try to do it right. I guess it doesn't really matter b/c B dropped the class right after class ended.

After class, student Y emails the prof and confesses to copying from X and more or less exonerates X. prof emails me instructing me to give X back the points for the homework, which I do. I then get an email from X, who I guess had not gotten the news that [s]he had been exonerated. [S]he claims not to know that Y copied. I really want to believe this, I really do. I like student X, and it was really hard to turn him/her in. I guess I'm glad that Y confessed. It's hard to condemn someone who did all the work, even if they let someone else copy.

I have no sympathy for students Y and B. If you're stupid enough to copy a bullshit 50 point hw assignment, you deserve to get a 0 for it. And besides, in order to pass the class, you've got to have a passing test average, which to the best of my knowledge, neither Y nor B were anywhere close. I'm actually angry at them for putting me in this position. In undergrad, there were plenty of times when I could have just copied from a classmate. I can't actually remember ever doing this in college. I'd prefer to take the crappy homework grade and try to muddle through it for the test.

I remember in high school when all the teachers threw a coniption fit when they found out that we were freely passing information about quizzes in multi-period tests. For example, if you had English 4th period and you knew you had a quiz that day, you'd find someone who had it 1st or 2nd period and find out what was on the test and consequently what to cram. It worked both ways, if you had a quiz before someone else, you'd return the favor. Honestly, back then, there really didn't seem to be anything wrong with it, just another way to beat the system. Only when the teachers freaked out and made a big deal about it did it really dawn on me that there was something wrong in what was the "norm".

Next time I TA, I will ask the prof for some time at the first class to explain the difference between copying and collaborating. Collaborating on astronomy homework is a good thing, as long as you both write up your own version of events. Hell, I usually don't understand my homework until I've discussed it with someone else. Downright blatant copying is unacceptable.

damn kids these days...


geez, I feel old.

Aggieland once more....

Took a trip to Aggieland this weekend. Christine was dunking her ring, and she invited me to come. I was glad I did. It was good to see all the young people again. I realized how much I miss that place.

There are no good texas country radio stations in Austin. Believe it or not, the live music capitol of the world does not have a decent country radio station. Now as far as NPR, classic rock, and 80's music, the radio stations here kick ass, but they are sadly lacking on the Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, and Corey Morrow. I realized this while driving into CS at 8:00 saturday night, and 92.5 played Corey Morrow's "Texas Time Traveling Machine" I miss two stepping at the Hall on thursday nights. Perhaps I'll have to drag some of my new friends out here in Austin.

On my way back, I heard my favorite song by Willie Nelson - "I'd have to be crazy (to fall out of love with you)" Erin never liked Willie. Maybe that should have been a sign...

So I got drunk off a 12 pack of Modelo with a bunch of undergrads on saturday night. It was fun. I felt really old, but it was good to see the Hart Hall 4th floor A-ramp crew again. They almost didn't recognize me with my new haircut. I stopped at Walmart on my way in and bought a set of dominos and we played bones after everyone had left. It was almost like old times. Except I didn't get screwed by the 6-5, which was nice.

I was supposed to go to sbisa with Vince in the morning, but he didn't answer his phone, and I got tired of waiting for him, so I went by myself. It was everything that I thought it could be, a cornicopia of goodness. I gorged myself on fruit, bacon, breakfast tacos, grits, and anything else I could pile on my plate. Later on in the day, (as I suspected) it came back to haunt me, and I became re-acquainted with the MSC bathrooms, but it was still worth it.

I'll finish this post later....

Update!!

Ok, ok, ok... I get the picture... I am updating... happy? :-P

I've been really busy the past few weeks, but it's been fun.

I saw the aftermath of a bike-car collision. It wasn't pretty. The dude was ok, but definitely shaken up and bleeding from the ankle, and the windshield was rather cracked. The girl driving the car was hysterical. I guess I can't blame her. I didn't see it happen, but it was 2 am, which means they were both probably drunk. Well, I don't know that... I'm willing to bet the guy on the bike was more likely to be drunk than she was. Apparently he had just left the Hole in the Wall (bar/club) and was not exactly acting sober. Judging from the layout of the accident, it looks like he was coasting down a hill and rode right out into the road, in front of the car. If that's the case, there's nothing the girl driving the car could do. But, then again, he could have been riding in the bike lane like he's supposed to and she drunkenly ran him over. Still, I tend to think it was the former.

Needless to say, I'm wearing my bike helmet religiously from now on. I guess I usually pay pretty good attention to cars when I'm on the bike, but it only takes once.

My apartment is a mess, I don't want to clean it. Actually it's not that bad, but I have too much paper clutter. I hate paperwork.

I can't decide what I want to do this weekend. I could either go to CS to watch Christine dunk her ring, or I could go to Wurstfest, or I could stay home and work all weekend. I really need to work, but the others would be fun.

A girl I'm tutoring for my astronomy class seems to be digging herself out of the hole. She's still confused about a lot of stuff, but she's actually doing much better than when she started. At the beginning of the semester, I was wondering how she graduated from high school in the first place, but she seems to be improving rapidly. I don't know if it's going to be enough to bump her test average up to passing, but it's encouraging. It seems she's learned how to study. She's making flash cards and everything. Kinda makes me jealous. If only making flash cards and memorizing facts about supernovaes and stellar evolution could help me in my classes. Anyway, there's a test in her class tomorrow, so I hope she does better on this one than on the last few.

5 secrets....

1) I never shave on days that I travel.

2) I am a pack rat.

3) I am an obsessive AIM away-message-checker.... Can't help it.

4) While I pretend to be a beer snob, I can't really tell you what I enjoy in a beer. I think an interesting (i.e. complex) taste is key.

5) My idea of a perfect weekend is fly-fishing in a river in Texas drinking Shiner. Haven't had one of those yet, but perhaps this fall will be the year....

ACL Part 2

well shit.... I retract my previous statment that I'm glad I'm not going tomorrow... It looks like all the weather from Rita went east of us. We've got blue skies and a little respite from the heat.

Speaking of Rita, I hope everyone made it through alright, and that the damages are not too terrible. I've already seen a picture of a collapsed wall in Galveston. The lampost made it through alright though...

ACL

No, I did not throw my knee out on the basketball court, I went to Austin City Limits Music festival!!! It kicked ass!

I got there for the last song of REK's set. Of course, it was The Road Goes On Forever. Too bad I didn't make it for the earlier part.

I finished up the night watching the Black Crowes behind a dirty old man who kept taking pictures with his digital camera of the rather hot girls dancing together in front of us. The Crowes were awesome, as usual. I enjoyed this set much more than when I saw them at Jazzfest. It was a bit longer than their set at Jazzfest (1 1/2 hours) so they got to a few more good songs. I especially liked Remedy, Hard to Handle, Jealous Again, and She Talks To Angels. One or two of the jam sessions got a little tedious, but all in all, they were very good.

When they came on stage, Chris said something to the effect of the following:

"We're glad to be in Austin, where the hippies and the rednecks seem to get along just fine. It's also probably the only place in the world where you can say "Hippies" and "Rednecks" and no one takes offense."

I agree. As someone who could pass for both a redneck and a hippie, I really like Austin.

I always get a kick out of seeing Chris Robinson dance around on stage. He likes to coordinate his moves with his chorus girls. He seems like a bit of a diva. With the frilly white shirt, the beard, and the long brown hair, I can't help thinking of the baptist portrayal of Jesus.

Other bands that I saw:

Blues Traveler - You gotta love the harmonica
John Prine - Love his scratchy out of tune voice. Just perfect for the type of songs he sings. I wish I had been a bit closer so I could have understood some of the words.
The Allman Brothers - Quality Texas rock set. It sucks that I only could catch the first half before heading back to hear John Prine.

I'm glad that I will not be going tomorrow. Not because I don't want to hear any of the acts, but because gales and rain have been forcasted. I'm glad that the weather ended up working out like it has.

I hope everything is working out for the best on the Gulf Coast. I'm glad it's not hitting Galveston, but I feel bad for the part of Texas/LA that it is hitting. Hopefully everyone is out.

As if I had forgotten I work in an astronomy department....

I swear. This is real. I got this email TODAY!

----
To: graduate@astro.as.utexas.edu
Re: LunchTrek

Greetings fellow students,

I'm resurrecting LunchTrek for the semester. For those of you new to this, once a week at noon we bring our lunches and watch Star Trek episodes in the 15th floor lecture room. Original Series, Next Gen, or both.

Those of you on my notification list from last semester will stay on my list unless you'd like to be removed. Anyone who would like to start receiving the weekly episode summaries (or can't remember if you're on my notify list), please respond to this email. The rest of you, I promise this is the only time you'll hear from me!

Also let me know if you have a preference for Monday or Friday, and if you would like to see only Original, Next Gen, or alternating episodes.

Live long and prosper,
xxxxxxxxxx

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

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good space opera as much as anyone, but come on people, don't perpetuate the stereotypes any more than absolutely necessary!!

apologies

So I wrote the xgf an apology email today. I know, I know, it has only been a week, but you can do a lot of thinking in a week. While I'm not completely over her, I am over her enough to realize that I'm no longer mad at her for breaking up with me, but more just angry at the situation.

Sarah is coming to visit this weekend. It should be fun. I think we'll go kayaking at Town lake and go see the bats, and then maybe 6th street. Woo hoo!

I went kayaking today with Miranda, another grad student. She's from Massachussets, and bought a brand new kayak for $900. Quite pricey, if you ask me. I guess I can't complain, since I'm going to drop ~$500 on a road bike once I get my paycheck in October.

Speaking of which, I will have to be very frugal this next month. I have not recieved a paycheck since the beginning of August, and I will not recieve my first paycheck until October 1st. Probably a good thing that happy hour this friday is paid for by the astronomy department...

Alright... Classes start tomorrow. I should probably drink some water. Going to class with a hangover is probably not the best way to start off 5+ years of grad school.

Surprised myself today

(23:57:18) xgf: and good luck with the first semester of grad school
(23:58:00) xgf: bye
(23:58:22) me: one more thing I want to say
(23:58:30) me: nm
(23:58:31) me: bye
(23:58:34) xgf: shoot
(23:58:39) xgf: you can say it if you want
(23:59:15) me: I've been wanting to say it for a long time... who knows, maybe it will make me feel better
(23:59:19) me: fuck you
(00:00:56) me: it's going to take a while before I can apologize for that
(00:01:00) xgf: don't
(00:01:01) me: but when I can, I will


Always nice to find out that you can still surprise yourself. (I know, I know, I stole it from Lester Burnham)

Dating is bullshit

Dating is bullshit.

There, I said it. Don't try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. It's all about sex appeal. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy voluptuous curves as much as the next guy, but is bra size really the best way to shop for your future soulmate? It's not a bad strategy when shopping for a quick lay or an STD. I know pretty much everyone will agree that beauty is only skin deep, but everyone is also too much of a chickenshit to really see if it's true.

Case in point #1: "As good as it gets". Has never happened, will never happen.

Case in point #2: I went out salsa dancing with a few of my friends from work. I ended up staying after they left, and dancing with one of her friend until it closed down. The girl was a really good dancer, and as we talked, I found out she was a really interesting person. She's going to med school, smart, funny, etc... But she wasn't "Hot." So, after the last song played, I bailed, saying I had to get up the next morning... to do nothing. I rationalized it by telling myself that I was leaving town in a month, no sense in starting something I can't finish. But, then again I worked up the guts to ask my really really hot co-worker out to dinner, with hopes of starting something I couldn't finish.

Then again, even if you do find your soul mate, if you're totally repulsed by her, that's not very healthy either.

I think I'm just on the rebound and am still in a "fuck you, Erin" mode. In the immortal words of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, "Is the way to get over someone, just to get under someone else?"

Once again, I think I am doing the right thing by swearing off girls (relationships) for at least a year. Maybe the key is to just date the beautiful people for fun while they are young and beautiful, but then when everyone gets old and ugly, then find someone you can settle down with.

Sigh... I thought I had both in Erin. Fuck you erin.

Dear ol' Dad....

Ok... this is going to be a serious post. I've got some issues that I need to work out. You're welcome to read them, but please don't try to help.

I'm not sure I've ever completely dealt with the death of my dad. Most of the time, I don't even think about it, but every now and then I really miss him. It's sad when you start thinking that your boss is the closest thing you've had for a dad for five years. That's not a knock against my dad or my boss, but since I was young (18) when he died, I never really got to know him as a person, rather than just an authority figure. I did some, but I think I was 16 or 17 when I learned that he was terminally ill, and getting to know someone while you're racing against the clock is a bit like someone holding a gun to your head while you're watching a movie and telling you that you'd better enjoy yourself or else. I wish I'd gotten to buy him a beer at the chicken and hear him tell R-rated stories and figure out what made him tick. I've heard stories about him, and he seemed like he was quite a prankster. I think there's a little of that aspect of him in me, but I think Mandy got more of it.

I think the best resource I have, other than my family is his website, http://rdeen.tripod.com.

I was watching some TV ad for a depression medicine, and it said that one of the symptoms is inability to focus. I know I'm not severely depressed, but that describes me to a T. I cannot focus on anything for the life of me. I have 20 million little projects that I've started, but I can never force myself to sit down and finish one. Studying is hard for me. In high school and the first semester of college, that was not the case. Studying was never hard for me. Yet in college, I've found myself so distracted that it's really tough to focus. I keep telling myself that I'm just going to have to buckle down and make myself focus, but it never seems to happen. I have no willpower.

Maybe I just need to get it out in the open and deal with it.

I'll muddle through eventually.

Ants

My apartment has an ant problem. Well, it's not so much a problem as an annoyance. They get into my dirty laundry and stuff, but I've only gotten bitten a few times. If I were going to stay here longer, I'd complain, but since I'm moving at the end of the month, I figure it's not worth the trouble.

Anyway, I've noticed that everytime I go into my bathroom, there are, more often than not, 2 ants patroling the floor. Sometimes there's only one, but most of the time, there's two. Kinda makes you wander whose wife they hit on to get stuck on bathroom duty. How do they keep their sense of direction to make it back to the nest? They turn so often and seemingly randomly, that it seems they'd get lost pretty easily.

These are the things I wonder about.

heartburn

I've had heartburn for the past few days.... some observations:

• Alcohol - Makes it worse. Of course if you have enough, it lessens your awareness of it.


• Red Meat - Makes it worse.


• Milk - Not exactly sure... It feels better immediately after drinking, but not for long term


• Sugar/Chocolate - Makes it worse. I think Fats are pretty bad for heartburn


• I do not like heartburn

drinking

If you cannot drink heavily without your significant other present, or trust your significant other to drink heavily without your presence, you don't need to be dating.