La Dolce Vita

I'm going to try to do better about updating this now that I have a little free time again. Not that I didn't have free time before, but I'm making an effort not to stay up until 1, which means I should be able to sit down to write about 11 and still be in bed by midnight or so. The reason for shifting the schedule back is that I'm eventually going to have to get up for work, and I'd rather not be a zombie my first week or so at the Missile Defense Agency.

Speaking of, I don't know much more about the job. I did get the official offer. Either you know me well enough to know the salary, or you don't. They did tell me that when I finish my Master's, the number will be adjusted, so I should be quite happy with things. I have completed my security questionnaire. I was long, involved, and awful. Most of you should know if I listed you as a contact. I assume the FBI is handling the background check, so if you see men in cheap dark suits, they're probably there to ask about me. I wouldn't smoke a joint in front of them, but you're probably safe enough not to run away.

I also have close to 40% of my thesis written and approved by my advisor. I still have a lot of graphs to generate and include for the next chapter, but that's mostly computation time, not real writing. The conclusions section is going to be the last big writing I have to do, then sum it up with the introductions, and defend it. I've got a month, but I need to be done with the graphs by the end of the week, if I can.

I am going to close tonight by issuing a challenge: out blog me. In the now close to 6 years I've been writing a near-daily blog, no one who I keep up with has out-posted me two months running. I'll even buy dinner for anyone who beats me fair-and-square (e.g. no creating 15 posts a day that have no content just to win numerically). Contest starts today and runs through the end of August. Everyone is already down two posts (see my rant below), so you better get to typing. Oh, and in case I am defeated by more than one person, I choose the winner. Final rule: I have to acknowledge that the contest applies to you. I don't want random bloggers who actually live for these things to track me down and expect me to buy them food. So, if I know you, you can win a free meal simply by out-blogging me for the next two months. Talk about motivation for me to keep up with this thing.

This time, I promise, more tomorrow.