Lunchbox

Old Photos

2009-11-23T11:28:00.004-05:00

Following Eric's model, for any of you who still look at this blog, I have added some things to a couple of old posts. I am now a pro a Fickr, so I've enhanced two old posts with photographs of food to accompany past Thanksgiving posts or recipes. See if you can find them!

Also, completely out of date but because I can, I am adding here some photos of Eric's visit to Rhode Island last October (2008). We went to a wildlife refuge along the south shore (Ninigret, I think?), hiked around, looked at far away things through the telescopes, and ran around on the old runway.

Homemade Cheese

2009-11-03T14:32:00.010-05:00

Last Christmas, Brian's mom got me a home cheesemaking kit. These photos show the first results for 30-minute stovetop mozzarella, which we tried last spring. This is also an experiment, as I am trying to figure out how to post photos from my flickr page. Bear with me...

Weekend Stuffs

2009-04-11T19:19:00.004-04:00

This weekend has been productive.

Went to the dump (Always a ball of fun)
Picked up supplies at Home Depost
Paid 30 cents for 4 screws
Hung up a coat rack/shelf
Drank at the Packy (4-6 on Saturdays is tasting time)
Cleaned out the cat's box (Yuck)
Watched the baseball game

We tried to hang up the coat rack on one wall, but the studs in the were not 16 inches apart. Well they were 32 inches apart at 4 feet up, but not 6 feet up. The wall is totally weird. We deiced to hang the coat rack on the other wall and it went up with little hassle. The 30 cents worth of screws were used to hang up the coat rack/shelf.

I was going to mow the lawn but it has been raining and it the temperature plummeted on Saturday. It was 60 on Friday, but it is 40 on Saturday. Not a good day to be outside.

We have been looking for Pre-emergent for the patio to prevent weeks, but all Home Despot sells is fertilizer/chemical stuff, not plain stuff to prevent weeds. We also got some black plastic to "cook" the seeds already in the patio so they don't sprout. I do not want to pull patio weeds again this year.

Sox win. Time for another beer.

Time for an update

2008-11-22T14:47:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving is coming. Like last year, we are sticking around Wakefield for the holiday weekend, but this year we are having two Thanksgivings.

Thanksgiving#1: On Thursday we are going over to Becky's house for the "official" big meal. We are making mashed potatoes, by special request (the potatoes I made 2 years ago must have been a big hit), and a couple of varieties of pie. We may walk away from this meal with a small quantity of leftovers, but the leftovers from last year's just-the-two-of-us Thanksgiving were so great that we need to do it again for ourselves. Brian, in particular, is apparently addicted to stuffing at this time of year. So,

Thanksgiving #2: I happened to be a lucky winner of the turkey lottery at Casey Farm. They raise organic, free-range, humanely treated, heritage turkeys on this local farm (in addition to much other delicious food), and this year we are getting one. Unlike commercial turkeys, these turkeys actually know how to have sex. On Friday, we will have a second Thanksgiving featuring this special bird and many of the big-hit recipes from last year's big meal. Stuffing included. And maybe I will finally make a pie from the nummy raspberries that have been in our freezer since summer.

Red, Red Raspberries

2008-07-07T21:05:00.003-04:00

Mmm, Raspberries. Out in the garden are a collection of raspberry vines, plants, bushes, or something. Whatever, they are producing a bowl of raspberries a day right now. They will be producing for quite a while seeing how many little white berries are still on the bush. We are freezing them and saving for later pie making, well some of them. Mmmmm.

Mariner's Travels VIII

2008-05-29T08:18:00.003-04:00

Wow, that path is totally confusing. The first leg of the cruise is finished and people will be exchanged for fuel (I think that is right, or maybe they will refuel and exchange some people. That still sounds weird, do you need a receipt to exchange a person ?) The second leg will have them doing some more dredging at Peggy Ridge, which is in the same general area. To get there they need to cross longitude 180, once again.

But first time was spent in Suva for the fuel and people exchange. They got off the boat but not for very long since they were anchored in the harbor for about 12 hours waiting for a berth. Instead of heading straight into town after "finding a parking spot" then hung out on the pier. It was too dark to go exploring the shops and sites. Maybe next time just before heading home.

Back to Sea. Our Mariner is now in charge of where to dredge. Her first attempt came up "mud and pumice :(". From the look of the sad face, it was not a good first attempt. She wants glass, the Mariners gold. Think glassy thoughts for her.

Mariner's Travels VII

2008-05-20T09:39:00.005-04:00

A slight detour was taken to Samoa, previously Western Samoa, to tend to an engineer who needed medical attention. This is the large detour in the track. The ship ended up in Apia, Samoa but no one was let off the ship at all for a speeding trip back to the Lau Basin. From the docked ship it looked like a nice place to go on vacation.

Mariner's Travels VI

2008-05-15T08:51:00.003-04:00

As I stated before, swath bathymetry mapping can be totally boring. It apparently can make you sail around in circles, too. But we have some really good news: The Styrofoam cups made it to the bottom of the ocean and came back up *really* tiny and perfect. Ah, science. Also found on the seafloor were

A tectonic mess
Not a simple spreading center
A stack of pancakes
Some donuts, hopefully not Dunkin'
A Lobster

These are all made of rocks, so I guess the last one would be a "Rock Lobster"

Mariner's Travels V

2008-05-12T21:12:00.005-04:00

Swath bathymetry mapping can be totally boring, especially in the middle of the ocean. Back and forth, back and forth. Almost like mowing the lawn. It is much more exciting with volcanoes, spreading centers, and fracture zones. In the end this will help find that buried treasure.

Mariner's Travels IV

2008-05-06T17:52:00.003-04:00

Time to cross the International Date Line. It is yesterday, it is today, it is yesterday. After some engine trouble (the wind must have died down) the voyage is quickly back on. Scally wags are getting their sea legs, but no treasure to speak of as of yet. Details are currently slim.

Mariner's Travels III

2008-05-04T13:07:00.004-04:00

After dredging volcanoes near Vanuatu, it was time to head towards Fiji. This time the treasure containing precious glass. It is time to head to Lau for the remainder of the voyage. Hopefully, the Fiji treasure will bode well for Lau.

Mariner's Travels II

2008-05-02T09:41:00.003-04:00

There is lots of dredging of the sea floor currently on going, but the booty they are looking for still evades them. The food on board the vessel apparently is better than expected, so scurvy *should* not be an issue. Some new sailors are still getting their sea legs, but the old dogs are accustomed to the "just-right" rolling conditions.

Mariner's Travels

2008-05-01T09:29:00.004-04:00

The Mariner is out to sea. I have tried to convince her to identify where she is and what she might be doing. She started off in Nouméa, New Caledonia and has headed east. Updates to be coming.

Grades in Excel

2008-04-15T11:07:00.002-04:00

Yes, I am using Excel. It does a reasonably good job at tallying grades and summing things up, it is a spreadsheet after all. However, I have had trouble issuing "letter grades" using Excel. In the past I have come across ways to accomplish like this: Write a series of "IF" statements embedded in each other.

=IF(A1>90,A,IF(A1>80,B,IF(....

Wow. How Ugly and a really ugly function if I got it wrong. I guess I was looking in the wrong place. Should have left out the "letter" when I was searching the interblog. The pretty way to do this is vlookup. Found through, who would have guessed, the Microsoft site.

=vlookup(A1,B1:C10,TRUE)

With the number grades in column B and the Letter Grades in C. No more worrying about writing that horrific "IF" statement, which reminds me of using "goto".

Busy Boy

2008-04-15T08:51:00.002-04:00

After posting a record 10 entries to his blog overnight, Eric has ensured that I will not read the first 8. Use your head, Eric!!

Meanwhile, back in RI, B and I bought a house and are poised to move in. After the fridge gets delivered on Wed., we will move the kitty and the TVs and will finally live in the house that we own. Woo!

We also bought some fancy chairs.

Oh, maybe I should have followed Eric's example and turned this into 27 separate entries, all posted at the same time.

Hello iphone

2008-03-15T21:55:00.001-05:00

Both of us recently got iPhones and I was informed I needed to post
from the phone. They are as cool as advertised. :)

Sent from my iPhone

Twinning

2008-02-21T12:02:00.002-05:00

It appears I am not as my evil twin appears. According to "scientists", I may not have the exact genetic makeup (DNA) as my evil twin. To state it plainly, it all comes down to copying. When the DNA is copied it can sometimes be, well, wrong. If a piece is missing or it gets reordered you get differences, some call them mutations. Whatever you call it in the end, the copy is different than the original. This important fact is being used to detect the genetic location of specific diseases, mathematical optimization problems, and why copying on computers, even across the ISH, are checked for mistakes or underhanded evilness.

Squash Risotto

2008-02-13T21:00:00.002-05:00

Also at Eric's request:

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 small ACORN squash, peeled, seeded and diced to ~ 1/4 inch
2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine (Pinot Grigio or similar)
4-5 cups chicken stock, kept at a simmer
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for sprinkling

In a large skillet or saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and squash, cooking until the onions have softened and are translucent but not browned 8 to 10 minutes. Add the rice and stir with a wooden spoon until toasted and opaque, 3 to 4 minutes.

Add the wine to the toasting rice, and then add a 4 to 6-ounce ladle of stock and cook, stirring, until it is absorbed. Continue adding the stock a ladle at a time, stirring constantly and waiting until the liquid is absorbed before adding more. Cook until the rice is tender and creamy and yet still a little al dente, about 15 minutes. Stir in the butter and cheese until well mixed. Portion risotto into 4 warmed serving plates, serving with extra cheese.

Sweet Corn Risotto

2008-02-13T20:52:00.002-05:00

At Eric's request:

2 ears fresh sweet corn
3 cups chicken broth
2 cups water
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic
2 cups Arborio rice
2/3 cup dry white wine (Pinot Grigio or similar)
1/4 cup unsalted butter (in pieces)
6 oz. Asiago cheese, finely grated
1 small tomato, finely chopped (we used grape tomatoes cut in half)
1/4 cup chives, finely chopped

Working in a shallow bowl, cut off corn kernels, then scrape each cob with a knife to extract juice. Place the cobs in a small saucepan with the water and broth. Bring broth, water, and cobs to a simmer and keep at a bare simmer. In a separate 3-quart heavy saucepan, cook onion in oil over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add garlic and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add rice and cook, stirring constantly, 1 minute, until the grains begin to toast a little. Add the wine and simmer, stirring constantly, until mostly absorbed. Add 1 cup of the simmering broth and cook at a strong simmer, stirring constantly, until the broth is absorbed. Continue simmering and adding broth to the rice mixture, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and letting each addition become absorbed before adding the next, until rice is creamy-looking but still al dente (it should be the consistency of thick soup, and the grains should be firm but not gritty), about 18 minutes total. There may be leftover broth. Remove the pan from heat and stir in the butter cubes and 1/2 cup of grated cheese. Gently fold in tomato, corn, and chives until the butter and cheese are melted, then season to taste with salt. I sometimes also add a few small balls of fresh mozzarella at this point. Thin with leftover broth if desired and serve sprinkled with remaining cheese.

Serves 4-6.

1906 Earthquake Cows

2008-02-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

While putting together my Earthquake lecture, which I just started teaching today, I am reminded of the story of "The Cow" and the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. At the USGS the story is retold. Unfortunately, there are not pictures, but the quick story goes that during the earthquake the ground opened up and swallowed a cow. There are some choice quotes in the retelling. At first it was told that the earth really gobbled up the unsuspecting cow:

"The earth opened for miles, right back of the house it swallowed up a cow — all that could be seen of it was the end of its tail. "

In the process the cow "kicked the bucket", somehow. Reporters came to interview the family who owned the cow which was swallowed up by the earth. After a while, 60 years or so, the truth eventually came out

"Look Pax, the cow had died, and we had to bury her. That night along came the earthquake which opened up a big crack and tipped it in, with the feet sticking out. Then along came those newspaper reporters and when they got the idea that the cow had fallen in we weren't about to spoil a good story. Why spoil it now?"

Indeed.

House

2008-02-09T09:56:00.000-05:00

For those out of the loop, basically everybody, we put agreed on a price for a house and are entered Escrow. Below are few house pics and a general timeline of how this all happened.

Two Saturdays Ago: Meet with our Real Estate Agent
Last Saturday: Toured Seven (7) different homes
Monday: Put on offer on the House
Wednesday: Counter offers and price Agreement
Thursday: Sign the Contract

Radioactive Haiku

2008-01-22T16:02:00.000-05:00

Uranium Ore
Outside My Door, Do not lick
Radioactive
As it turns out I have some Meta-autunite sitting outside my door. Using Geiger counter we determined the radioactivity of the sample behind glass. If you are very close to it the reading is high, but two feet away the reading is not above background. This quick dissipation is normal for alpha decay, which Uranium-238 undergoes. To be safe, we also checked the radioactivity near where my head is normally and I get more radiation from outer space through my window.

For reference, the Russian dissident was killed in England with Polonium-210, an alpha emitter, after he ingested it.

Health Warning: Contains uranium - always wash hands after handling. Avoid inhaling dust when handling or breaking. Never lick or ingest. Avoid prolonged exposure in proximity of the body. Store away from inhabited areas.

Thanksgiving Recipe Extravaganza

2007-12-01T17:24:00.001-05:00

Below I have posted most of the recipes we used in making our Thanksgiving feast, plus a couple of bonus recipes. Mmmm...food.

Sweet Potato Soup (w/ Bacon)

2007-12-01T17:11:00.001-05:00

I found this recipe in the Nov. 07 issue of Sunset. It wasn't part of our Thanksgiving feast, but is worth putting up here because it is simple, quick, and totally delicious.

1 1/2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 large leek (white and light green parts only), rinsed and thinly sliced
2 small garlic cloves, minced
2 lbs. orange sweet potatoes (about 2 large sweet potatoes), peeled and cut into ~1" cubes
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 slices of bacon, cooked and cut into small pieces (optional)

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add leek and cook until soft and translucent, about 6 minutes. Add garlic and cook 2 minutes longer. Put sweet potatoes in the pot, add 3 cups of water (I used 2 cups of water + 1 1/2 cups of turkey stock made from the carcass of our turkey), and the salt and pepper. Increase the heat to high, bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-high and simmer until the sweet potatoes are tender, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool for 10 minutes. Purée the soup until smooth. Over low heat, stir in the cream and add water to make desired thickness. Season to taste with salt and pepper, garnish with bacon chips, and serve (serves 4-6).

Turkey Meatballs

2007-12-01T17:04:00.000-05:00

I made this recipe up the other day, to make use of some of the leftover turkey. They turned out really good.

1 1/2 cups of ground roasted turkey
1/2 onion, minced
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp poultry seasoning
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine all ingredients together in a small bowl, until the mixture is moistened. Form into balls of desired size (we got ~12 1-inch meatballs out of this). Heat a couple of Tbsp. of oil in a frying pan (I used some of the leftover turkey fat) over medium heat. Place meatballs in the pan and fry, turning regularly, until evenly browned.

Katie's Mom's Pie Crust + Apple and Pumpkin Fillings

2007-12-01T16:48:00.000-05:00

Pie Crust
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2/3 cup shortening
1/2 c cold water

Cut the shortening into the flour + salt with a food processor or 2 knives or a fork, until the pieces are the size of small peas. Sprinkle water into the mixture by tablespoons, mix with a fork, push the bigger clumps to one side, and add more water. When all is moistened, gather up into a ball and divide into 2 equal pieces. Refrigerate for 1 hour or more. Roll out onto a lightly floured surface. Makes crust for top and bottom of a covered, 9" pie.

Apple Pie Filling
7 apples, peeled and sliced (for a 9 inch pie)
3/4 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
dash of salt
2 Tbsp. butter

Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl. In a large bowl, mix with apples. Fill the bottom pie crust with apple mixture and dot with butter. Place top crust over, and crimp the edges together with a fork. Cut holes in the top crust to let steam escape. Place in 400° F oven for 50 minutes to 1 hour.

Pumpkin Pie Filling
1 15-oz. can of pre-cooked pumpkin
1 tsp. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp melted butter
1 12-oz. can of evaporated milk
1 cup sugar
1/8 cup molasses
2 eggs, beaten

Sift together sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Mix with canned pumpkin. Add eggs, melted butter, molasses, and evaporated milk. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie plate lined with crust. Bake at 450° F for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350° F and continue baking for 50 minutes.

Pan Gravy

2007-12-01T16:40:00.000-05:00

For each cup of brown drippings use:
2 Tbsp. fat
2 Tbsp. flour
1 cup brown dripping liquid or other liquid (water, stock, etc.)

Remove meat to a warm place. Pour off and reserve the clear fat from the brown liquid. Measure the amount of fat needed into a small saucepan.
Measure the brown liquid into the roasting pan. Stir and scrape all of the brown drippings loose from the pan, heating the mixture if necessary. Set aside.
Add flour to the fat in the saucepan and whisk together until smooth. Cook over low heat, stirring steadily, until the mixture is bubbling. Remove the pan from heat. Gradually whisk in liquid and drippings from the roasting pan. Return the saucepan to heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil for 1 minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and serve.

Gujerati Green Beans

2007-12-01T16:33:00.000-05:00

1 lb. green beans
4 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. whole mustard seed (yellow, red, or black all work)
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1 hot dried red chili pepper, coarsely crushed (or 1/2 to 1 tsp of red pepper flakes)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
Pepper to taste

Trim the beans and cut into 1" lengths. Blanch, drain, cool, and set aside.
Heat the oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the mustard seed. When the seeds begin to pop, add garlic and stir until it turns light brown. Add the red pepper and stir for a few seconds. Add the green beans, sugar, and salt, and stir to mix. Turn the heat to medium-low and sauté about 8 minutes (or until they taste spicy). Add pepper, mix, and serve (serves 4).

Katie's Mom's Stuffing

2007-12-01T16:27:00.000-05:00

1 cup butter
2 cups diced celery
1 1/2 cups minced onion
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 tsp salt
2 tsp poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp pepper
16 cups (about 2 loaves) day-old bread, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup chicken broth (for portion cooked outside the turkey)

In a large kettle or stock pot, sauté celery and onion in butter until soft. Add parsley, salt, poultry seasoning, pepper, bread cubes, and eggs. Mix well. Makes 8 cups of stuffing. If cooking outside the turkey, spread mixture in an 8 x 13 pan and pour broth over. Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes or until brown on top. I cover with foil for the first half of baking, to keep the stuffing moist.

Thanksgiving Turkey

2007-12-01T15:50:00.001-05:00

We didn't really have a recipe for this, and B did most of the turkey wrangling. Our turkey was 13+ lbs., and we followed general instructions from the USDA. It took several days to thaw in the fridge, and then B extracted the giblet bag and the neck from the 2 cavities and rinsed the bird out in the sink. He inserted some stuffing, tied the legs together with some string, and placed the turkey in an aesthetic pose in the roasting pan. Turkey was roasted in the oven at 325° F for ~4.5 hours, until the little button popped and internal temperature was ~150°. We covered the turkey with foil for the first 1.5 hours, then uncovered, buttered the top, and basted every 20 minutes thereafter.

Mmmm, Stuffing

2007-11-23T13:39:00.000-05:00

This year we stayed home for Thanksgiving and made almost everything. All was tasty.

View the Slideshow

Pre-Thanksgiving Warmup

2007-11-18T15:50:00.000-05:00

Having no nearby invitations for Thursday's big meal, B and I decided on Friday that we should try our hand at doing the whole thing for ourselves (plus one turkey-crazy cat). So we filled up the propane tank, assembled a menu, made a special trip to Providence to get some needed equipment, and did most of the grocery shopping. B has also done a lot of internet research on how to handle turkey. Neither of us has ever cooked a turkey before, and I am an off-the-wagon-for-the-holidays-only vegetarian, so this will be a big adventure. And no, we are not going to deep-fry it.

Items on the menu include: one 13-lb turkey (the smallest available on Sat.), gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans w/ mustard seed, salad, cranberry-orange relish, vanilla ice cream, and pumpkin pie. Mmmm...pie.

Hopefully the leftovers will last us all the way through until we leave town for AGU.

Riding to Pont Judith Lighthouse

2007-09-03T16:40:00.001-04:00

Labor Day afternoon, Kt and I rode down to Point Judith Lighthouse. We had quite a strong seabreeze headed down to Lighthouse, but we eventually made it desipte the clam shacks and lack of a shoulder on the last mile or so of the road. We hung out for a bit then proceeded to head up towards Narragansett. It was a beautiful day for a ride and much easier to get back with the wind at our backs. We also stopped for some fries at a clam shack in Narragansett, small but cripsy and tasty.

We will probably try the new posta maker with a recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook tonight. Possibly the sweet potato one. Mmmmmm.

Does America Run on Dunkin ?

2007-07-23T22:41:00.000-04:00

Not all of America. I think it would have been easy to explain that the Americas, North and South, do not Run on Dunkin Donuts. Now, does the United States of America run on Dunkin Donuts. That is another question. Well, the answer again is no. As I heard on a plane,

"The only thing wrong with California is that there are no Dunkin Donuts."

Besides the insaneness of that statement, it is technically correct. I decided to find out who actually runs on Dunkin. After getting all of the current (July 2007) locations from the Dunkin Donuts website, it appears from the image below that New England, New York, and Chicago run on Dunkin. Orange dots are single locations and the pinky dots are high density Dunkin Donuts locales. There are none in California, but that is not the only problem.

Walletless

2007-07-13T14:27:00.001-04:00

Katie is gone for the weekend doing some experiments at some fancy lab. I had some major plans to cook some interesting and new food while she was gone due to all the extra time I was going to have, or I really should say, all of the extra time I was going to have to fill since she would not be there. Nuts to that.
I managed to leave my wallet in Katie's car and it left with her to help with the fancy experiments. Now from Thursday to Monday, I have no ID, driver's license, credit cards, ATM cards, and no real way to get money besides the cash I have on hand. I could use a check but would probably need an ID as well.
So I have been riding my bike to work, as I should have been doing, and I have been watching my spending very closely. No beer runs and no fancy dinners for me, although I could probably afford a trip to Phil's this weekend if I go before 7am and get the special for $1.50. Mmmmmm.

iPhone

2007-07-10T11:20:00.000-04:00

This last weekend, we traveled up north to the Mall. It was soooo far, like 30 minutes away. After doing some much needed shopping we wandered into the Apple store and went directly to the iPhone. It was a pretty slick piece of electronics. The sound quality of the phone was pretty good for inside the store and I think one of us may be getting one within the next year or so. We may have to wait for AT&T's wireless network to improve before getting one.

Everything else about it was really cool, besides the fact it was a phone. The maps, calendar, address book, and the mail was pretty neat to a lesser extent. It was also pretty nifffffty as it had an ipod with cover flow and such. The best part will be the syncing of all the important info from a usable application rather than a dumb one provided by the phone maker or not having one at all.

Ugh, Morgan

2007-04-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Which would you rather do:

List to Mr. Morgan do color commentary during ESPN/Baseball
Listen to the game on the radio 5 seconds ahead the TV

That was our quandary. We choose the second. Neither of us can stand Mr. Morgan. By the way, some of us also do not like Mr. Buck on FOX, I actually like him. Gimme Jerry and Don, or Kruk and Kuip, or ... How did are these people picked to do nationally televised games?

Now this is announcing: "Have some pizza!"

Baseball Time

2007-04-08T09:59:00.000-04:00

Ah Baseball season is here again. While I was home the last time my brother pointed me to a group that follows baseball in a different way. I was aware of the "statistics nuts" that were constantly referenced during baseball games commentary and other people complaining about "How many bases Ricky Henderson stole during night games while up by more than 4 or more runs during Passover ?" But some of the things are actually quite interest ing, especially if you are just a bit mathematically inclined or want more to emerse yourself in everything baseball.

I was also a bit disappointed when one the OSX Dashboard Widgets I used during last year's baseball season to watch and follow all the teams I care about, yes there are three, stopped working. So I decided to make a widget of my own to replace the broken one. One of the things I added to my version was the determination of Win Probability and graphing that during the game. Here are some pics:
The score, count and bases are all there, just like the previous widget, but I added the pitcher, batter on the right and the team which is currently at bat. Finally there is a gauge which tells you probability of the home team of winning.
If you double click on the widget, it expands and shows the graph of win probability for each batter that is up for the entire game. If you run the mouse over one of those little red or black boxes, it will tell you the play that made the win probability change in a little box. And there is also a back so you can select the game you want and change the "importance" of the play to display those little play boxes.

Clothes out of the Dryer

2007-04-07T21:09:00.000-04:00

For the last few (4) weeks, we have been without a washer and dryer, and hence clean clothes. We normally do clothes on a every other week basis, but since the washing machine died about 4 weeks ago due a leak in the tub and killing the motor we have had to do without. It is amazing the kinds of stuff you will wear when you are trying to stretch your wearable clothes. Last weekend, we made a special trip to the mall, which is about 45 minutes away, to pick up necessary delicates. We finally this week got the new washing machine and dryer. It is one of the new high efficiency machines and is very quite and uses very little water, plus the dryer finishes in about the same time as the washing machine. Ahhh, clean clothes.

Poorman's Implementation of Multi-Processing

2007-03-05T16:43:00.000-05:00

Ages ago I wrote a small little program pimp.pl (Poorman's Implementation of Multi-Processing). Stupid little thing, it allowed me to run multiple programs on multiple computers at the same time. It was a improvement of a program that was written by myself and loads of help from my CS roommate while I was at Berkeley. When I added some improvements, I also added a queue system and came up with pimp-queue.pl. Now I could run using more commands than available computers and the remaining commands would just queue up.

No

2007-03-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

According to this, I never update this thing. I think someone was trying to force me to post again. Well, I was up early this morning to take Katie to the airport so she could get to Japan for a meeting. I had some breakfast and then went to work. I read this post and was intrigued. I tried it, or better yet I tried to make it work. Sorry google, first it didn't work, I modfied the source and got it to work and then found it clunky to use. What was I suppose to do with it. Yeah, I could post from my text editor, but I can do it much more easily in my web browser.

I spent a good bit of my morning trying to make it work, when I should have been working on what I inteded to do: work. So to help out the reason for my time sink this morning, I point hime to this extension for vi.

So the answer is No. No I will not post, at least with emacs client for blogger.

Forecasting

2007-02-09T13:17:00.000-05:00

No, not earthquakes. Weather. A self-titled OmniNerd, again not me, decided to determine which ISH based weather service was serving up the most accurate forecasts. While the main sources like weather.com and accuweather.com did a pretty good job, some others like MSN did not.

Internet Weather Forecast Accuracy

While reading some comments from the linking site, I came across this gem:

For in stats, as in ethics, the n's do justify the means.

Ha! Delicious.

WRXoom

2007-01-27T14:03:00.000-05:00

The car has arrived. An entire suite of pictures and notes about the pictures can be found here or if you just want to look at the shiny new car, try the slideshow.

A complete overview is at Subaru.com, and a quick one is below

Standard Features:

224-hp 2.5-liter DOHC intercooled, turbocharged SUBARU BOXER engine
226 lb-ft of torque at 3,600 rpm
Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive
MPG: (manual) 20 city / 27 highway
Projector-beam halogen fog lights
Sport-design instrumentation with center-mounted tachometer
Leather-wrapped 3-spoke steering wheel with manually adjustable tilt column
Performance-design front seats with fixed integrated head restraints
120-watt 6-speaker audio system with 6-disc CD changer and MP3 capability
Auxiliary audio jack

Non-Standard Features

Rear Differential Protector
Gary Busey Helmet Protector Protector
Auto-dimming Mirror and Compass
All Weather Floor Mats

Birthday Bonanza

2007-01-26T15:40:00.000-05:00

Some very sweet people got some incredibly nice things for my birthday. The best part is they all work together to form something completely awesome.

I got a set of really nice speakers which were placed in the kitchen and a Airport Express which was plugged into the wall near the speakers. The Airport Express is really nice because it allows me to stream music from my computer to it and then on to the speakers. No more connecting wires or hauling the computer with the so-so speakers to the kitchen. So nice.

Didn't think that would happen

2007-01-26T15:22:00.000-05:00

% ssh somewhere.important.edu
shell: segmentation fault ssh somewhere.important.edu

This was after I installed an update for OS X today on my work computer. I had to go and install a new version of OpenSSH to fix the problem. Not entirely sure what happened, but it really sucks when the program you use every single minute stops working. I think it was a library issue but this should have been checked for. I am not really sure why OS X is using an older version of OpenSSH, but oh well. Hrrrrumph.

% ./configure --prefix=/sw --with-ssl-dir=/sw --with-pam --with-tcp-wrappers --with-ipaddr-display --with-libedit
% make
% sudo make install

You say Ka, I say WRX

2007-01-23T11:40:00.000-05:00

This last weekend, I went out to purchase a Ka, sorry a Car. I had decided on the type and options, plus about how much I wanted to spend. With the help of Katie and helpful advise of Consumer Reports we were all ready to haggle properly. I knew my starting price and the price I really wanted to pay, but the dealer undercut me and offered the car at invoice, or what they paid for it.

Now I have not gotten the car yet as the dealer is searching New England for the specific car that I want. I should get the new car sometime this week as well as pics. More specifics to follow as well.

Here is the Car I will be getting, but mine will be Dark Gray and will not corner as well or go as fast. Probably a good thing, I don't need to get to work in under a minute.

Holiday Wrapup

2006-12-22T16:57:00.000-05:00

Much traveling and sleeping in foreign beds lately. Last week was spent at AGU in San Francisco. We stayed across the street from the Marriott. It was ok, but the bed was a little hard and there was a TV attached to it. I meet with lots of old friend from grad and undergrad as well as other meeting I have attended in the past.

After the tiring meeting, it was back home for a few days to tie up some loose end, like finals, grades, and reimbursement. Then it was back out to the west coast. We flew through Atlanta. I hate that airport. What kind of airport allows smoking inside. Smoking lounges are "seperated" from the rest of the airport by a sliding glass door. I have seen the doors propped open, people standing in the doors keeping them open, and a cone in front of the door (for what reason, I do not know). I have also walked in front of the door only to have to open and receive a refreshing breath of second-hand smoke. Thanks Atlanta. I would gladly pay an extra $250 per flight to avoid being routed through your smoky facilities. Oh, and don't get me started about the beeping, "beeping", beeping carts.

We finally made it to Oregon and had a nice dinner at the Portland airport. For those not in the know, the Portland airport (PDX) is smoke free, has free wireless, and is rather quiet (as airports go). The last few days have been spent relaxing on the couch waiting for packages to arrive for x-mas. We will be off to California next week for more holiday festivities.

Macy*s Thanksgiving Day Commercial

2006-11-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

I cannot seem to watch the Thanksgiving Day "Parade" without getting grumpy. It happened last year and it happened again this year. I think my two biggest problems with the "parade" are it is a kinda half parade, half street show and it is just a big commercial. What commercialism ?: first, it is called Macy*s blah blah; second, the current Broadway musicals put on their numbers to advertise themselves; third, most floats are sponsored by some company with the exception of a few; fourth, the channel covering the "parade" decided to bring on actors from their current crop of shows to advertise them, and not show the floats and balloons. If you are going to cover the "parade", cover the "parade". The funky "parade" structure also bothers me. With the singing and dancing coming before the "parade" starts, actually an hour before it starts. The whole thing just seems a bit stupid to me. But the dog show is on afterwards.

Oh, the markets in The Ocean State and The Turkey State are closed on Thanksgiving. The people here take their Turkey Day seriously.

You Drink, You Type, You Spill

2006-11-10T14:39:00.000-05:00

Well, it happened again. I was working at my computer having a nice warm cup o' joe. I turned to my left to look at my laptop, then decided I would do something else on my desktop machine. I am a multi-tasker, you see. I went for the mouse quickly, and without looking. Nothing is *ever* in the way, why look. *Smack* *Clunk* *Clunk* *Glug* *Glug*. There goes the coffee, Nooooo-ooooooo. Sh*t, now I have coffee on my keyboard and mouse. Quick, Clean, Clean, Quickly Clean, Save the Mouse, The Keyboard. Get all the liquid off the mouse, Now the keyboard. Phewww, mostly clean and dry now. Awwww Sh*t, the space bar doesn't work now, either do portions of my keypad and pressing "k" now produces "k;", the "l" key doesn't work either.

I have two choices. Fix the keyboard or get a new one. I didn't have the tools on hand or even at home to completely take apart the keyboard. It would also take a while, probably a week to get it fixed, that is if I could fix it. I give up.

I called up Apple for support. They told me I needed a new keyboard, but it is not covered under my warranty because *I* spilled the coffee. I guess if my computer spilled coffee on its keyboard Apple would replace it. That is fine, it was like $40 for a new one. I was told it was going to be 3-5 business days until I get the replacement. I guess I deserve that too for spilling the coffee.

This has happened numerous times before. Lets see I can add coffee to the ever growing liquids I have spilled on my keyboard:

Coffee - Once
Tea - Like three times and with many more near misses.
Coke (in a real glass bottle, one of those tall ones, not the short ones) - Twice

This morning around 11, my new keyboard got delivered. Wow, that was faster than NetFlix. Sweet. Thanks Apple, you have made my life better once again. Now I need to learn not to put liquids near my arms, hands, and mouse.

CAP Movie Reviews

2006-10-18T19:27:00.000-04:00

CAP, what is CAP ? See on boingboing.net and blog.wfmu.org, we have the ChildCare Action Project (CAP) Christian Analysis of American Culture (CAAC) Movie Reviews. Reading throught the reviews are, one might say, hill-airrrr-e-us. South Park and Sin City are great. They also have final scores infleuence density, with the lower the final score the worse and the higher the influence density the worse. South Park got a density score of 10.65 and Sin City got a score of 0.0. Now I am sorry I missed Sin City. Here is a breakdown of the scores in histogram form. The top is the final score and the bottom is the infleuence density. Hmmm, interesting.

Mighty Mouse

2006-10-13T09:20:00.000-04:00

This new screen with the mighty mouse is sweet. Not only is the screen big, 23'', it is linked in with all the nifty new OS X features. I can use the button ball on the center of the mighty mouse to task switch or any other task, like expose. The other cool thing is screen zooming. Hold down the control button and then use the scroll ball to zoom into the screen. Freakin' Sweet.

Stuff I forget but need

2006-10-12T11:38:00.000-04:00

I am trasferring a whole bunch of files from my old computer to my new one, what a pain. Doing this makes it go a alot faster. Oh yeah, I am putting this here so I know where to find it the next time I need to do this. Hopefully never again.

tar cf - files directories goldfish | ssh savage13@ip.address.schmucky.com tar xf - -C /home/me

Switerland Run Down

2006-09-24T11:13:00.000-04:00

My trip to Switerland was great. The first two days were spent in Zurich with Kelly who was esstential in organizing the meeting that was the next 5 days. While in Zurich we took a boat tour of Lake Zurich, bought Chocolate, ate fondue, ate sauerkraut, ate sausage, but I did not buy a time piece or do any banking. While I do have a new job, my resources are not expansive enough to warrant a Swiss Bank account. The next five days were in Pontersina, in the south eastern part of the country near St. Mortiz. Most of time was spent in a conference room discussing science but we did get a one day field trip to the Alps to see some quite interesting yet complex geology.

have you heard about the new pirate movie?

2006-09-18T20:09:00.000-04:00

it's rated arrr!

Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-20T10:23:00.000-04:00

On Friday night, Katie and I went to see Snake on a Plane. Wow, that was and will become a classic campy horror movie. Go see it. You might thank me later.

happy birthday kt

2006-08-17T18:22:00.000-04:00

That's right, happy birthday to me! Brian and I went out for beers on the roof deck and then fancy dinner at the Coast Guard House in Narragansett. Brian was driving, so I ended up with the better 2/3 of a bottle of tasty wine. After a yummy dinner (my Ahi Tuna was good, but Brian's Lobstah Ravioli was deelicious), and an even yummier chocolate dessert, we ran around barefoot on the beach, learned some astronomy, and fell asleep by 10 pm. It was a very good day.

How does Eric know it was my birthday?

Happy Day

2006-08-15T10:56:00.000-04:00

It was all setup yesterday. As it was V-Day here in Rhode Island, I decided to fix some stuff in the house, move in a little bit more. I tackled the shower. The shower head that was installed was not the best in the world, it was also using a non-standard pipe. I walked down to the hardware store, got a $2 converter piece and installed the shower head. This morning while taking a shower I noticed the difference. So Much Better. Having a good shower head is incredibly important.

After the fantastic shower, I drove to the main campus to pick up my offer letter for my job. There were some small changes to be made to the letter, but nothing drastic. I need to sign it and return all the forms by Friday. *doing a little happy dance*

Nintendo DS Lite

2006-08-14T10:24:00.000-04:00

Weehoo! I got a DS Lite last week. I had to wait for the games to come seperately, but they finally arrived. I spent most of Saturday and some of Sunday sacked out on the couch playing. The controls are great and it is easy to use, but sadly the Wi-Fi feature only works with WEP or no-auth. I may just setup the extra wireless router as WEP for playing the DS through the WISH (Wireless Internet Super Highway) , but not through WDT (Wireless Dump Truck).

Katie found this one. For everyone that is interested, Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy is coming out in mid-September for all systems, including the Atari 400. I think this is just absolutely confusing. Lego Star Wars was from the second set of movies, but named I, II, and III. Lego Star Wars II is the from first set of movies, named IV, V, VI. Why not just name them, Lego Star Wars (Ahh): The Ones You Love and Lego Star Wars (Yak): The Ones Which Weren't That Good. That would make is much clearer.

ANL's albino midget deer

2006-08-13T13:06:00.001-04:00

Last Monday, a colleague and I had 24 hours of beam time on the synchrotron at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Lab. While I won't dwell on the nerdy scientific application we were trying out, there are few weird things about APS that are worth sharing. 1) The main mode of transportation inside the synchrotron is the adult-sized tricycle. Fun to ride, but hard to steer. 2) There is a mysterious network of above-ground pipes that goes all over the campus. The pipes take crazy 90° bends have lots of nonsensical twists. An ANL scientst told us that the "local lore" is that these are steam pipes that deliver heat to the buildings, but the fact that that this is "lore" suggests to me that their true purpose must be much more secret. 3) The lab campus is populated by the freakiest deer I have ever seen (in fact, they look more like big goats aside from their huge antlers). Liz and I had a close encounter with two ghostly stags in the middle of the night, which was pretty cool but also kind of creepy.

Moving with TiVo

2006-08-07T20:21:00.000-04:00

After moving the TiVo had to be set up. Katie did most of the work and it took her a while, well it took the TiVo a while to determine where it was and get the tv schedules it needed. Cool. it works. Nope, it doesn't. I realized today that the TiVo was doing fine with the cable channels, like Comedy Central and Discovery, but with the local/over the air channels it was having trouble. The TiVo was looking for particular programs on particular networks, like ABC in DC. That was never going to happen. I needed to delete the season pass for each local channel and get the season pass again for the same program. It wasn't all that hard, just a very odd circumstance.

Locale Change

2006-08-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

I have fully moved up to Rhode Island. Nothing is left in DC. I still need to unpack all of my boxes and do a bit of organizing but that will come with time. Katie and I also need too figure out what we need to get for the house. She has been waiting for me to move in before the purchasing begins. She has started to get milk delivered weekly from Munroe Dairy.

Bottle Caps

2006-08-01T08:27:00.000-04:00

I thought this was pretty neat. Bottle caps as magnets or thumbtacks. It looks so simple, even I could do it. The hot glue gun may be a problem.

Comics

2006-07-29T10:47:00.000-04:00

If you like the comics, and you think those other comics really have no business on the same page as things like this

You will throughly enjoy The Comics Curmudgeon. It takes a stab at all those other comics and makes them worth reading, or at least skimming for idiocy.

brian needs a new post

2006-07-27T16:50:00.000-04:00

this video made me laugh out loud. how much fish can *your* cat haul?

Bite My Shiny Metal ...

2006-06-23T10:27:00.000-04:00

Futrurama is Back

From the article: "I just have one reaction: Huzzah!"
I agree.

Timbuk2 Weekend Contents

2006-06-18T07:56:00.000-04:00

I went to a pool party on Saturday and decided to bring a bit of beer, with thanks to the Monks of course. I had bought two 6-packs for the party but need a transportation device. In comes the Timbuk2 bag to the rescue. I knew I got this bag for a reason. Browsing through the photo set below you can easily see that the beer fits into the bag, plus there is a bit more room for a towel, swimsuit, and some sunscreen. Brilliant. Hmmm, is that what the 2 stands for in Timbuk2.

Apparently, I learned during the pool party Jason Lee will play me in a movie of my life. Maybe it is the beard. Who will play you ?

Stupid Dress Codes

2006-06-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

Last night I went out to a bar with some people from work. A specific bar was suggested beacuse of the outdoor patio and we were having some rather nice weather. When we tried to enter the bar I was informed I could not enter. Eh ? I was wearing my normal garb, tshirt, jeans and sandals. The tshirt and jeans were fine, but the sandals were a big no-no. Unfortunely, some people we were meeting had already entered the bar. Someone had the brillant idea to enter the bar, get the shoes of someone already inside and give them to me so I could enter. Wow, that was stupid. I returned the shoes of the kind soul and put mine back on, sat down and ordered a drink.

A couple of minutes later the bouncer who had originally not let me in tapped me on the back and asked where my shoes were. Grrrr. I asked if he was going to kick me out for my sandals and he basically said yes. So I asked if I could finish my drink and he was a bit hesitant about that but eventaully agreed. At this point, a woman from our group offered me her shoes if I would wear hers. See, women can wear sandals but men cannot. I decided to talk with the bouncer downstairs and he reluctanly agreed to the new situation. I spent the rest of the night in someone elses shoes sitting at a table with my shoes were not even visible.

I have run into places like this before but this was incredibly stupid. I would have thought I would have been denied entry because of my tshirt, or even my jeans, but my sandals. The reason I was given for the rule was that "We are trying to uphold a image". Interesting. While inside I saw people "dancing", i.e. rubbing up against each other. I suppose if I want to "dance" I need to have the proper shoes, for my own safety. Needlees to say, I will not be returning to this place.

Who is afraid of the ...

2006-06-14T10:17:00.000-04:00

I heard some rumors that some people are afraid of esavage13 because he "knows" stuff. Like World Cup Football things. Well, I can certify that he knows some things but is not insane. Actually he is kind of cute and considerate. He wanted to buy this for me for the holiday season. He will not cause trouble for anybody except me. Trust Me.

I miss Suck.com

this soccer ball looks a lot like math

2006-06-12T16:20:00.000-04:00

for those of you who are math nerds AND soccer fans, check out these movies of mathematical transformations of a soccer ball. complete with equations!

for the same demographic, i also recommend this BBC article about the new world cup ball. it's swervy!

Timbuk2 Bag

2006-06-10T20:30:00.000-04:00

I got a new bag since my old backpack has started to show its age. I decided to get a Timbuk2 bag because it has slot to put my laptop and keep it protected. Here are some pictures.

Google Answers

2006-06-05T21:25:00.000-04:00

While doing a search for a question I was talking with Katie about I ran across Google Answers. What you do is ask question, set your price, and then a researcher associated with Google Answers brings some calm to your mind. Interesting idea. I started looking through some of the questions. Oh boy, some of these are weird. My favorites are the tea and excel ones.

postage rate for a regular letter in the United States
what's the most points michael jordan has scored in a game?
The price of tea in china.
How many ribs do I have....?
percentages in excel
what type of spider is this?
Girls

And finally something useful:
world soccer cup on american tv

Frontline: AIDS

2006-05-30T21:07:00.000-04:00

I like Frontline on PBS as it deals with interesting subjects form a vast number of topics. Tonight they are showing a history and spread of AIDS from its discovery in the early 1980s. It is incredible story of science, politics, and culture. I am only 30 minutes into the 2 hour long, 2 part story. More information is here.

salad dressing

2006-05-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

Eric liked my homemade balsamic vinaigrette, so here is the recipe.

Combine:
1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
1/8 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup canola oil
1 clove of garlic, cut in half
1+ tsp "Mrs. Dash" original spice mixture

Shake well. Pour on salad.
Makes 1 delicious cup.

I got this recipe from a family friend, Leigh Pomeroy, who is a former screenwriter and MN congressional candidate from Mankato, MN. Oh, wait, no. The other Mankato, MN. Leigh also is the father of identical twin boys for whom I used to babysit when they were little. Coincidence?

Wet Computer

2006-05-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

I have had the worst luck with computers in the past months. This time it was the new apple laptop. I was walking home and was caught in a rainstorm. I and Kt got completely drenched. We were so wet I could squeeze water out of my jeans. I then realized some time later my computer was in my backpack.

The outside of the bag was soaked too. The computer sleeve I got was wet as was my new little laptop. :( I opened up my computer and "Kernel Panic ...". After drying off most of the water I could, I powered the computer down and back up again. Ding ding ding, then nothing. Hmmmm. Maybe the power is low, so I plug in the power, no light on the connector, bad. After much brooding and getting annoyed at the computer and anyone who tried to do anything, it was time to call apple.

Me: Hi, my computer got wet and now it goes Ding ding ding.
Apple: Let me put you on hold
Me: Ok

I was then disconneted. Grrrr. Call again

Me: Hi my computer got wet and now it goes Ding ding ding
Appple: This sounds like your computer has bad RAM or it can not find your RAM, you need to take it into an Apple Store or send it in to get repaired.
Me: (under my breath) S*&t!
Me: Where is the nearest Apple store ?
Apple: Arlington, Virgina
Me: Ok, can I make an appointment ?
Apple: No, you have to wait for tomorrow.

Ok, put the computer down take a deep breath and wait for tomorrow. More brooding and terrible thoughts. I need to call Apple to tomorrow and make an appointment to get my computer fixed or taken in to be fixed. Either way I have to go to Virigina.

Next day:
I tried to turn my computer on the next day, just for "fun". Now it went "Bong" like it should. But it then gave me the folder with a Mac face and a "?". Hmmm, this seems a little better, but not great. I need to make an appointment anyway, so I called Apple.

Me: Hi, I called yesterday.
Apple: Ah, yes. Your computer goes Ding ding ding. They have already sent a box to your address to pick up your computer just in case it needs to be sent in.
Me: Umm, ok. Well, my computer no longer goes the ding ding ding thing. It now takes a Bong hit and shows that questions mark in a folder picture.
Apple: Ok. That icon means that the system cannot find your system software on any disk connected to your computer. Do you have the OSX boot disk ? Place that into the computer and when the computer goes "Bong" press and hold the "C" key until you get the spinning gear. That will take you into the install program and we will try to fix things from there.
...
After some booting time and me pressing the "C" key like it will save my life. During this time I also set up a apointment at the Apple Store to take my computer in.

Me: Ok. I am the install screen.
Apple: Go to Utilites and select Disk Utility. Then select your hard disk and select Repair disk.
Me: Ok, it is repairing. ....
Me: I got this gray screen that says to restart my computer.
Apple: Hold down the power key for a long time to power it down and then turn it back on. The disk repair crashed while it was making the repair.
Me: Ok, it is booting and I am not holding down the "C" key. ... It looks like it booted all the way, no little folder icon or anything. It is asking me to login.
Apple: Go ahead and log in and move your files to a safe place, just in case you need to send your computer in. I also want you to make sure and go to the appointment at the Apple Store.
Me: Ok and thanks for your help.
Apple: I am still not is wrong with your computer. It may have intermittant RAM issues, but the people at the Apple Store could tell you better.

I took the long Metro ride out to Virginia and visited the Apple Store. They checked everything out about the computer and I told he entire story from above. This took about a half and hour as I wandered around the Apple store saying, "Oh, I want that" and "Wouldn't it be cool to have that gigantic screen!". At the Apple Store, they started the computer with the Boot Disk and holding down the Apple Key or the option key, I am not sure. The computer went through all sorts of self-checks of RAM and hard drives and other stuff.

In the end, everything checked out ok and I am using the computer. I guess getting the computer wet is a bad idea. Some goods things did come out of this. Katie let me use her new Timbuk2 bag and I think I am going to get one as well. It has a built in compartment for a computer and is water proof, plus all sort of little pockets. Apple customer support was really pleasant, helpful, and knowledgeable. I guess neat little computer is cool, but having someone else fix it is even better. I feel like a ad. Oh and the "I'm a Mac ..." ads were running on a continous loop in the store. They got annoying in the end.

Party, Party, Work

2006-05-06T17:43:00.000-04:00

The end of this last week was full of parties. On Wednesday was the Geophysical Laboratory (GL) centennial which included a day full of talks (which I skipped), dinner and drinks that evening. People shared their memories of GL while others ate. On Thursday, Kt flew in from up north to come to Carnegie Evening in DC. There was a talk about Biomass as a possible alternative energy source with dinner and drinks afterwards. People still complain about the dress code (not black-tie anymore) and the food (no more raw oyster bar), but everything was still done incredibly well. Now the weekend comes and it is time to do some work not done during the week. Kt has probe time this coming week, but it should not be as bad as it has been in the past. I have a proposal due on Thursday and some more work I have been putting off to work on the proposal. As I said, party, party, work .....

OS X Apps falling out of the sky

2006-04-30T17:53:00.000-04:00

Still playing around with the new OS X. I am still having fun and glad I switched, plus everything is so "clean". I found a number of cool sites and programs that make me feel a little more at home.

Wow, a list great.
Word of Caution: I would suggest being very careful of walking under a palm tree, you are never sure what may fall out.

Bird Mumps

2006-04-27T15:47:00.000-04:00

I am sick today and it is terrible. I keep hearing news about Mumps and Bird Flu, which both have flu like symptoms. So I figure I have both. My beak is beginning to swell and my feathers are covered in goose bumps from being hot/cold. Icky. I hope to be better soon.

Back and Forth

2006-04-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

Spent most of today and yesterday running about fixing code for collegues as well as my own. In between those times I played a bit with the son of a visiting collegue. I think playing was more fun than debugging code, but it involves much more slober. The codes were dumb little things that if not set properly will propagate and create lots of havoc. The scripts of course do not check for "saneness" of parameters, it just assumes that they are present and correct. I guess that is what you get for code research codes handed down from person to person, with the origin basically unknown. Munge.

demolition day

2006-04-18T21:43:00.000-04:00

Today, GSO was the hottest spot in all of Rhode Island. Governor Carcieri declared GSO as the official state viewing site for the demolition of the old Jamestown Bridge (no doubt Buddy Cianci had his hand in it somewhere too). Traffic has been flowing across the "new" Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge since 1992. So every family in the whole state packed the kids in the car and camped out on the GSO beach to see the big event. What a zoo. I got to watch from the roof of my building. Ka-boom!

San Francisco 1906

2006-04-18T21:34:00.000-04:00

Today is the aniversery of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. There is a whole lot of information regarding the earthquake with a meeting in SF. Movies of earthquake simulations can be found here and further down the page. Many of the people I know and work with were involved in makeing these movies. For those who do not know, this is the kind of work that I do and I am glad to see it getting some good press. Pictures from 1906 can be found here. To note, the story about a cow being swallowed by a fault is incorrect, the farmer squeezed the cow into the hold made by the fault.

Shouldn't you be working ?

2006-04-14T10:19:00.000-04:00

Found Maelstrom and Apeiron for OSX yesterday. Could not find PuyoPuyo though. I played these games my first year in college and they are still incredibly fun.

Aperion

Maelstrom

Busy Weekend

2006-04-11T13:33:00.000-04:00

Oh, what a weekend. It was jam packed. On Saturday I went to the Air and Space Museum Annex at Dulles Airport with Kelly and one of her family friends. Katie was jealous of me going. I told her we would go the next time she was in DC. They had the Space Shuttle, a Concord Jet, and a SR-71 Blackbird on display. From there we tried to find Arlington National cemetery. We ended up at the Pentagon and stopped the car because we were lost. The pentagon police asked if what we were doing, we said we were lost, so they gave us a police escort to the cemetery. Following that I went to a birthday party for someone at work.
Sunday was the Red Sox - Orioles game at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Kelly and I decided to go early and have brunch because it was a mid-day game. We found Blue Moon Cafe and the food was excellent. However, during the meal I realized I forgot the baseball tickets back in DC, almost an hour traveling each way. We called the box office to try and get new tickets and they told us we could get our tickets reprinted for $5. Yeah. The game was cold, but the Red Sox triumphed behind the pitching of Wakefield. After the game, we joined some of my friends from work at an really good Afghan restaurant. It had the same name as a one in Boston and San Francisco. The Baltimore version was owned by the brother in law of the owner of the other two. Busy Busy weekend.

New Shiny Computer

2006-04-07T15:14:00.000-04:00

Got the new little computer yesterday. It is, as some one said, "shiny and pretty". I have been installing software on it all day and it is very easy to use so far. I got the wireless easily setup at work and at home. Some things were a bit confusing, like how to install x11 and how to get my ipod to talk nice with the laptop. Thanks to Katie again, a program called Senuti, copying songs to and from the ipod, and restoring the ipod I was able to accomplish this. It really should be much easier.

News on News

2006-04-05T20:40:00.000-04:00

Listening to the news today, the big story was the one anchor moving from one tv network to another. Do I really care ? No. Apparently the news outlets , all of them, seem to think we need to know about it. It is really something that should have had maybe a few minutes devoted to it, but they used up almost half the day. The news outlets developed such a woody about the story. News about News, like me telling everyone every detail about my work. I don't care.

Dying Computer

2006-04-04T15:36:00.000-04:00

My computer is on its last leg. The hard drive is crapping out and the computer does not like to be booted unless it is made it an offer it cannot refuse. I decided to get a new computer and I am going with an Apple. No more Windows, no more Linux. It will be a little, silver 12 incher Powerbook G4. Katie was kind enough to let me use her new computer for the time being to store my files and use the screen for work. I should be getting it within the week. I can get all my work done on this machine and still play around if I want to.

Rhode Island

2006-04-01T17:31:00.000-04:00

On Thursday I travelled up to Rhode Island to visit Katie. We went to lunch with collegues from GSO on Friday. On Saturday, Katie and I were incredibly exciting. We took the recycling to the recycling center for the first time, got a spray bottle and furniture pads from the hardware store, had really good brunch at Phils, checked out the butcher and fishmonger, and Katie got a bike. Besides the recycling center, it was all within a 2 block walking distance of her house. We also watched a pre-season baseball game while eating cheese and drinking beer. I should up in RI for almost a week.

Sick of it All

2006-03-27T09:43:00.000-04:00

I was sick all last weekend, it sucked. I was confined to my apartment all weekend long and I watched tv, played videogames, and ate food. I looked like such a nice weekend outside. But I did finish Resident Evil and get all the high scores on Dig Dug and Galaga. I also slept a bunch and did absolutely no work. I think I will be trying out Super Monkey Ball next.

New and Old

2006-03-26T21:32:00.000-04:00

As one may remember a while back the original lunchbox died. I seemed to have a harddisk failure. As things go, this suck. I will figure some way to retrieve th data. In the meantime I will be writing here. Not as homebrewed and "fun", but a bit more fancy and less hassle.

AC:WW Fossils Wanted

1990-01-03T16:25:00.000-05:00

Fossils:

current

1990-01-01T16:42:00.000-05:00

Fossils

None

Fish

None

wanted

1990-01-01T16:41:00.000-05:00

Fossils
Dinosaur Egg
Iguanadon Tail
Fish
Arowana
Blue Marlin
Cherry Salmon
Clownfish
Coelacanth
Crawfish
Dorado
Eel
Frog
Giant Sankehead
Hammerhead Shark
Jellyfish
Killifish
Loach
Piranha
Shark
Stringfish
Sweetfish
Tuna