I Am Not Happy with This Turn of Events

Someone somewhere screwed something up, so no one can be brought in at MDA until at least sometime after September 17. That means October 1 at the earliest. I told them I was available September 4, and it's going to be October at the earliest. There's nothing I can do about it, so there's no point in getting angry, but that's not stopping me. It's probably no one person's fault, and certainly not the office worker who I've been talking to, but I'm angry in general at the whole process. I've been talking to these people for 8 months now. One might think they could get SOMETHING together in that time.

In other news, nothing much going on in Memphis for me. I bought a new antivirus software. Office Depot had McAfee something or other free with mail-in rebates. I already have McAfee, but the updates are expired, and the new version has more features. And it was free. I remember the days I'd be proud of some new video game, now it's anti-virus software.

I did find out that Dr. Harris, principal of Germantown High School, isn't anymore. I've heard the terms "demoted" and "reassigned." In either case, he was removed from that job and replaced by Mr. McIntyre, who most of the student body wanted to be principal back when Dr. Harris was named to the job. I can't find an official reason for the change - all of the stories I've read cite incidents that occurred at least 2 years ago. I saw on one site that he was transferred because of a complaint, but that tells me nothing I couldn't have already guessed. I knew that the faculty didn't really like him. Students probably didn't care one way or the other. He never bothered me in the 5 or so years I've been going back on campus for mock trial stuff. I think Mr. Mac will do a good job, not that it really affects me anymore.

Stupid TV, not airing any of the shows I like because it's either Labor Day Weekend or the US Open is on. More tomorrow.

Time to Decorate

I haven't even moved yet, and my mother has already redecorated my new apartment 3 times. I certainly appreciate all the help I can get, especially since the place won't get decorated unless someone does it for me. It's just that I have no interest in being involved in the decorating. She'll ask me, "Do you like this fabric or this one better?" Since I really don't care, but I have to make a choice, I mentally flip a coin, which always lands on the one on the left. So far, it's worked. I'm going to have decorated, color-coordinated rooms without doing any work myself to achieve it. This is a win-win situation.

I'm still debating about a few things for my apartment. I have a nice stereo I got several years ago that I've kept in my room here in Memphis for all of my moves so far. In high school, I used its alarm feature to wake up to the soothing rhythms of The Devil Went Down to Georgia and The South's Gonna Do It Again by Charlie Daniels' Band. At some point, it's going to have to come to live with me again. I don't know if I want that point to be at this apartment or to wait until I'm somewhere more permanent. It's going to be at least another month before I'm home again, so I've got some time to decide.

I don't think I've watched more than 5 minutes of TV all day, and that was walking through the living room downstairs. I had mine on earlier, but that was to play video games. Right now, however, I need to read. My new book comes out Tuesday, I think. Only one place on the internet has more than "September 2007" for the release date. I need to finish what I'm reading now before I get the new one, though. More tomorrow.

Something With a Frog - Donkey Kong!

On Cash Cab tonight, one of the contestants was trying to guess the video game Frogger. He knew enough to state "something with a frog" then guessed Donkey Kong. This makes perfect sense to me - you see, this person was an idiot. Well, that's not fair, he was old. Then again, so is Frogger. Lee and I tried to compete with answers over AIM, but my wireless connection wasn't letting me communicate very well. I don't even know that I've missed a message most of the time, so if I ignore you while I'm at home, that's the reason.

I made my drive without major incident this time. It did rain on me several times, and quite hard twice. I made it out of the school about 2 and was home before 6:15, so that's pretty good time, too. I'm not going to miss that drive, though. It's not awful, but the drive to and from Huntsville is both shorter and more interesting. It also passes through Carinth, Missippi (also known as Cornith, Mississippi), which is one of my favorite redneck towns.

Why am I so much more tired at home than at my own place? More tomorrow.

Politics Aside

I may be limiting some of my political discussions here in the near future. I have several reasons to need to do this. For one, I will be a government employee and may be required to keep such opinions to myself. I personally think that's bogus, but I also want to keep my job, assuming I ever start it. Secondly, political discussions are much more fun as a debate rather than as a rant. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good rant, but the level of debate for this site has been, well, disappointing. I don't know that White Guys With Irrelevant Opinions will be retired so much as taken out back and shot. There may be some instances where it's appropriate to return to that format, but for now, politics in the blogger world will have to take a back seat.

As for today, I went to campus to run some data for Dr. Moeller. I could have done it here, but I hadn't done it here for about a week, so campus it was. I also took a look at some code Lee was developing and (I think) improved it. Well, it should work now, where it didn't before, so that's an improvement. I didn't really look at the code, just improved a 'for' loop. It's something thesis-related, but I didn't really look at it closely enough to make any (additional) judgements about his idiocy. Doc Brown had a dry sense of humor, but it did exist.

I need to get back on my 9:30 blogging, 11:00 bedtime schedule. I'm going to have to start work at some point (presumably), and I doubt they'll be cool with my current school hours of 11AM to 2PM with an hour for lunch. It is the government, so maybe they will be. THAT would make this the coolest job ever. Missile Defense and awesome hours. More tomorrow.

Still No Start Date

I did, however, finally get through to the person with MDA in Huntsville who needed to talk with me last week. Today, however, she didn't need to talk to me. And she had lost my file. And her supervisor was out with an injured knee, so she didn't have any details about anything. Here's what I did learn: I will start no sooner than September 17, and they are supposed to communicate additional information in the coming days (which I interpret to mean when the decision-maker is back in the office). I had missed the deadline to start September 4, which was the original availability date I gave them, and the next possible start date was September 17. They only in-process at the start of each pay period, that is every other week, so the next possible start date is October 1. This is the government we're talking about here, so it may even be November before I get started. I could dress up as an out of work engineer for Halloween.

I went to school today to see if Dr. Moeller wanted me to explain the programs I've written and am giving them. It's the stuff I've done for my thesis - they just want the background info so they can continue to use it once I'm gone. Today wasn't good for him, so it's going to be Wednesday morning before I finish that up. I've got a little more data to run for him, so I'll do that tomorrow and give him everything Wednesday. I then plan to be gone Thursday and Friday, and possibly Tuesday, since I won't have a work conflict.

Speaking of travel schedule, as it stands now, I am hoping to leave Tullahoma Wednesday after lunch and be in Memphis by early evening. I'll stay through at least Monday afternoon, possibly Tuesday, depending on how stir crazy I'm going at my house. I'll be back in Tullahoma by 7-ish whichever day I drive back. I don't really need to be any more precise than that because it's not like I'll have any responsibilities to the school. I probably won't be back in Memphis again until after I start my job, which is now guaranteed to be after I move. I'll be about 90 minutes closer to my house in Memphis than I am now, though, so I'm going to try to be in Memphis a little more often. When I was down there before, I was home either 6 or 7 weekends out of 9. It's not a bad trip to make after work or Sunday afternoon. Somehow that extra hour and a half makes this drive seem much worse than maybe it should be. Oh well, I don't have to drive it that much more.

Forensic Something-Or-Other And Angel From Buffy Have Chemistry And Solve Crimes is a good show. I enjoy it. I somehow can't seem to fit it into my during-the-season schedule, but I'm watching it now, and it might make the fall lineup this year. Unless it airs opposite Heroes, or Smallville, or NCIS, or The Unit, or CSI (original recipe), or Shark, or any good SciFi Fridays, or Numb3rs. More tomorrow.

I Am Not Jason

Nor Jeremy. Nor Charlie.

I keep getting emails from people at UTSI that are intended for Jason King. Our email aliases are based on first initial and last name, so both would tend to jking. However, I was here first, so I got jking. He is jking1. The school email system has a built-in, searchable, address book that NO ONE seems to know how to use. I guess everyone assumes there couldn't possibly two people with similar names, except that THERE ARE. I think I've corrected the physics department, which was sending me information related to Jason's classes. Today, I got an email from Callie Taylor, the admissions / student life coordinator, intended for Jason. I suppose it's just good no one has sent me anything of critical importance for him, because it usually takes me a couple days to get around to responding to tell the sender they have the wrong person. That's what the address book is there for, I don't feel I have any responsibility in the matter. If it had been something like "if you don't reply to this within 24 hours, we're going to impound your car" I'd probably forward it on. I'm not an email forwarding service here.

I'm out of things to say tonight. For some reason, I'm more tired than usual for a weekend. I also need to get up and head to the school in the morning. More tomorrow.

Spartans! Prepare for glory!

I now wished I'd seen 300 in the theater. It was amazing. It's got Frank Miller's signature all over it, so if you didn't like the feel of Sin City, you won't like 300. I enjoyed both movies, but this one was better. The movie as a whole required some suspension of disbelief, but some parts required a little more than I was quite able to provide. Still, I'd recommend it for a fun two hours.

It's late, so I'll write some more about today in a later update. More tomorrow.

Dangling Participles

I can't intentionally write in dangling participles, but if I could, I would. It's a grammar joke from Psych. It's not really funny, but the episode took place at a nerd school, and grammar jokes were about all they had that the writers could understand. They did have Avogadro's number make a guest appearance, which was awesome. Dude even wrote it with units, though I didn't get a good enough look at them to determine if they were correct. The number itself was correct to all the decimal places I know. There was also a joke about calculus as "remedial math," which is the writers' attempt to show that these kids are geniuses. What the writers don't realize is that "calculus" isn't just a subject, it's a whole field of study. Even math majors don't cover all of calculus in college. Math doesn't end at calculus. Math begins at calculus. All that other stuff is background. I'm serious. I also fully acknowledge that my math skills, while more than sufficient for engineering, aren't nearly to a level to be a mathematician. Not by a long shot. I took the detour into the practical world of using math to do stuff as opposed to doing math for the sake of math. And I'm much happier for it. How did this paragraph detour into my career choice? My mind works in strange ways.

A huge storm blew through Tullahoma earlier this evening. Remnants are still around, but it got loud for a while. Power and cable blinked off, right at the critical "explain the entire scheme of the bad guy" moment of Psych, but nothing was lost for long. I explained the lightning as a strobe light in the sky - it was that frequent. Along with the two sonic booms earlier today (and those must have been some low-flying aeroplanes), one might think the sky was angry at something. Of course, one who thinks that would be an idiot, since we know it was sonic booms and thunder, but one might still think it. The rain has lowered the temperature all the way down to 68 degrees outside. That would be appreciated for the next several days, even if I have to be rained on. I'll take the cooler weather.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but someone from MDA in Huntsville called me Monday while I was at the school. Since reception is so lousy up there, I just let it go to voicemail. I returned the call when I got home, about 3:40 that afternoon, and left a voicemail. I didn't hear anything Tuesday or Wednesday, so I called again Thursday morning. No answer, the call went to voicemail again. Rather than leave a second message, I hung up. I called again that afternoon - no answer, I didn't leave a message. As of tonight, I still haven't heard back. I'm wondering at what point I start calling my other contacts at MDA. This sounded like it was clearing up the final hurdles to finally set a start date, and I'd like to do that as soon as possible. Right now, I think I'm going to be unavailable the week of Labor Day, too. I told them a month ago I could be available then, but they never got back to me. Now, I think I don't want to have to drive that week if I don't have to. Also, it will give me an extra couple of days in Memphis. Government pay period doesn't start until the next week anyway, so it should make life easier for everyone.

Well the eagle's been flying slow and the flag's been flying low
And a lot of people are saying that America's fixing to fall
But speaking just for me and some people from Tennessee
We got a thing or two to tell you all
This lady may have stumbled but she ain't never fell
And if the Russians don't believe that they can all go straight to hell
We're gonna put her feet back on the path of righteousness
And then God bless America again

And you never did think that it ever would happen again
In America, did you?
You never did think that we'd ever get together again
Well we damn sure fooled you
We're walking real proud and we're talking real loud again in America
You never did think that it ever would happen again

From the sound up in Long Island out to San Francisco Bay
And ev'ry thing that's in between them is our home
And we may have done a little bit of fighting amongst ourselves
But you outside people best leave us alone
'Cause we'll all stick together and you can take that to the bank
That's the cowboys and the hippies and the rebels and the yanks
You just go and lay your head on a Pittsburgh Steeler fan
And I think you're gonna finally understand

And you never did think that it ever would happen again
In America, did you?
You never did think that we'd ever get together again
Well we damn sure fooled you
We're walking real proud and we're talking real loud again in America
You never did think that it ever would happen again

In America by Charlie Daniels' Band. More tomorrow.

Dog Fights is Still Cool

I saw this on Google news and two thoughts immediately came to mind: 1) I did not need to know this and 2) wait, isn't that second reason a little obvious. Here's the headline:

Barring health issues or the lack of a partner, many Americans remain sexually active well into old age, a survey of 3,005 adults finds.

Once the initial ick factor is gone, think about the second exception they list: lack of a partner. Wouldn't that be stopping people of all ages? I didn't read the article. I preferred to keep the contents of my stomach in place, thank you, but I assume they mean spouse's death or similar situation. Just a weird way of saying that.

I now have another reason to hate Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth: Amy hates the movie. Again, this follows my policy of accepting things which fit into my preconceived notions, but she had a few reasons for her dislike of "Truth". First, there were charts / graphs which showed that global warming was evil and going to kill us all and sleep with everyone's wives. These charts had no axes. They were lines on a piece of cardboard, essentially. If you've ever taken a science class in your life, I hope the teacher impressed upon you that graphs are COMPLETELY WORTHLESS without well-labeled axes. Things like the time over which the data was recorded is critical. Also, the y-scale can make data look more or less impressive than it should be. A temperature change of 1 degree over 10 years (general global warming amount I hear quoted most often) shown on a scale of about 40 degrees (for example average high temperatures everyday for the ten year period) wouldn't be noticeable to anyone looking at the graph. Showing temperature change from December to August for a single year would show nearly a doubling of temperatures, impressive evidence of "warming" (because it's summer). Also in the movie, it seems, was a cartoon involving a person made of sun and the "greenhouse gang" who prevent the sun from leaving by beating him up. Amy could probably explain it better, but I still don't really get the point of it. I'm just glad that a person with an analytical background has seen the movie and called it what I figured it was: pure horse hockey. She said she had to quit watching it because it was so bad. That's why I liked the MTV review of Sicko back when that movie came out. Kurt Loder, the guy who's been at MTV news since the network premiered, went through all of Michael Moore's points and offered explanations about what he said and didn't say about the various foreign healthcare systems. Unless I'm being tortured, I don't expect I'll ever watch anything by Michael Moore or Al Gore. So people supporting my beliefs without me having to endure the torture are always appreciated.

It seems I'm missing an awesome episode of Dog Fights on the History Channel. More tomorrow.

It'll Get You Drunk

Malt liquor is good fun. Or so I assume, after seeing a question about it on Cash Cab. It's too alcoholic to be considered beer in some states. Also, something about a drinking game called Edward Fortyhands, I think.

Of note, Lee has resumed blogging. It's not very interesting, but he tries. I take it as a compliment that he's trying to copy me, even if he's not very good at it.

Today, I went to the school, delivered some data to my advisor, and ate lunch. It was about that exciting. I mailed my approval sheet to Knoxville and got some stamps before that. That was equally as exciting. What can I say, today was one of those days where you do boring stuff all day. Not everyday involves alien babes on a mission of lust. Just the good ones. Where I've been dropping LSD. That's the term, right? "Dropping?" I'll go with dropping. Good enough. Now, where was I? Right, boring. I think I covered it.

I want a job where I get to randomly throw explosive things into the fire while hot women stand around in low-cut tops. This would be my dream job. More tomorrow.

Falling Sand Go Boom

I did nothing interesting today. I ran the data set Dr. Moeller wanted numbers from next. I played Sim City 3000 for a couple hours. I also played the new Bored.com time-waster Falling Sand. It was a busy day. Tonight, I went to Wal-Mart and forgot the one thing I actually needed from there. So I'll go again tomorrow morning, get me a big envelope or a box of big envelopes, and mail my approval form. And be officially finally done with my thesis, for reals.

I wrote a nice editorial in the next post down. I just decided to separate them so that if you want to ignore my political opinions, you can. Normally, I'm not so considerate, so you losers better appreciate it this time. I mean you. Yeah, you.

I'm going to do some more research (read: google) on a facebook group a friend of mine recently joined. My guess is that the group is only telling half of the story, but before I commit to an opinion on that, I'll have to do some more reading. I may forget about it entirely, and if I do, it's just as well, because it probably wasn't very interesting. Wouldn't be much of a change, but I try to avoid the topics which even I don't find worthy of space here. More tomorrow.

Fresh Pickings from the Political Grapevine

Also known as, "I Stole These From the Fox News Segment with the Same Lead-in":

No News or Good News?

The Chinese government has told its media to report only positive news and is barring reporters from covering some stories altogether. The Guardian newspaper reports the increased censorship comes ahead of an important Communist Party meeting.

The media have been banned from investigating the ongoing problems with Chinese exports. Most state media have been kept from reporting on the bridge collapse in southern China that killed 41 people. And coverage of new traffic control measures — including the ordering of 1 million cars off the roads — has been severely limited. Reporters are forbidden from talking with inconvenienced commuters or showing images of overcrowded buses.

Mind Games

The American Psychological Association is barring its members not only from participating but even witnessing interrogation techniques used against terror suspects at U.S. facilities.

The Washington Post reports the techniques include sleep deprivation, putting hoods over the head and the threat of such actions. The association says the methods are immoral, psychologically damaging and counterproductive in getting useful information.

Psychologists may witness such techniques while monitoring treatment of the detainee for research. Those who have their membership in the association revoked can lose their licenses to practice.

Dust Up

A Nation of Islam school that is using city land in San Francisco is demanding that a nearby housing development be halted because it is throwing naturally occurring asbestos dust into the air.

But now the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the 5-year-old school has never paid its agreed-upon rent of $2,000-a-month to use that property. The head of the city's housing authority, which controls the buildings the school uses, says he has never asked for the rent because the school district has never billed his agency.

Former Friends?

The American Civil Liberties Union is planning to run a critical ad in the hometown papers of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The ad depicts Pelosi and Reid as sheep and says they have "caved in to yet another Bush assault on our freedoms."

It says the revised Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act gives "new powers" to the attorney general and new eavesdropping powers to the government without meaningful court or congressional oversight. It concludes: "We don't need sheep protecting the Bill of Rights."
The FISA revision authorizes surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists believed to be outside the U.S.

An ACLU spokeswoman tells FOX News that the group wants to hold Democrats accountable now that they control Congress. The ads will run in the next few weeks.

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

Done Deal?

Many media outlets — such as the recent Newsweek magazine cover story — portray man-made global warming as fact and those who deny it as conspirators. But skeptics are increasingly certain that the scare is vastly overblown.

A new study by Brookhaven National Lab scientist Stephen Schwartz contends that the Earth's climate is only about one-third as sensitive to carbon dioxide as the United Nations' recent climate study claims. Schwarz's work will be published in The Journal of Geophysical Research.
The study is just one of several peer-reviewed scientific studies challenging global warming alarmism:

The Belgian Weather Institute concludes that carbon dioxide does not have a decisive role in global warming.

A study by two Chinese scientists says CO2's role in warming is "vastly exaggerated."

And new research by University of Washington mathematicians shows a correlation between high solar activity and periods of warming.

Meanwhile, what is billed as the first comprehensive analysis of global biofuel impact has concluded that their use may release between two and nine times more carbon gases than fossil fuels.

The study published in the journal Science says the clearing of forest land to grow biofuel crops will produce immediate carbon gas releases and also destroy habitats, wildlife and jobs. It says that while biofuels look good from a Western perspective, they will be harmful on a global scale. The study contends it will take about 40 percent of American and European agricultural land to grow enough biofuel crops to replace only 10 percent of fossil fuel use.

Rewrite Ordered

The BBC's plans for a storyline about Islamic suicide bombers in one of its popular dramatic shows have been overruled by the corporation's leaders, over fears of offending Muslims. British media report the episodes of the long-running medical series "Casualty" will substitute animal rights activists as the villains.

The Guardian newspaper reports the BBC's Editorial and Ethical Standards Department said the original storyline would have perpetuated stereotypes of young Muslims in Britain.

Rooms Available

We hear about jail overcrowding in many places. But in Norway it's the other way around: Too many empty beds in prison. That's because 20 percent of convicted criminals simply fail to show up to serve their sentences.

The news service Aftenposten reports almost 1,800 convicts were no-shows last year. One of the problems: It is not illegal in Norway to skip your prison time. Norway's parliament has passed a new law making it a criminal offense to blow off a sentence, but so far it has not been implemented.

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

Me again.

I want to start with the last story there because it's just good fun. Showing up for your jail sentence in Norway is left on the honor system, and 80% of people still show up. Yes, if you sentence someone to a jail term, you want them there, so the 20% skipping out on it needs to be fixed. But there is no penalty for not actually going to prison, and 80% of Norwegians (sp?) still go. If anyone wonders why Europe doesn't have a superpower anymore, it's because only 20% of criminal skip out on jail sentences. That is, 80% of the criminals are either (a) too stupid to take advantage of this loop hole or (b) actually want to spend time in jail, also indicating their stupidity. Silly Europeans.

I also like the school that hasn't been paying any type of rent on a property complaining about the nearby construction. I'm not sure what the point of that story was - it doesn't really matter if they're paying rent or not. They had permission to be there and paid every bill they'd received. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near asbestos, natural or not. The "demanding" part of that is a little strong, but I'd assume that's just some artistic license for "have requested in the strongest terms possible." They aren't really making a demand: "stop the construction or we'll stop paying ren - oh, um, we'll . . . stop the construction or else."

China is just doing what China does. Media outlets here are complaining about being censored (not sure why, really, it just seems to be a standard claim, much like global warming, but I'm getting ahead of myself). I wonder what they'd say in China. Nothing, that's what. Or they wouldn't be saying it very long. And I'll bet the Chinese Psychological Association would let their members watch, video tape, and offer suggestions for improving the methods used on the reporters who dared challenge the government.

I've said it before - I love it when liberal groups try to out-liberal each other. Before, it was PETA and Al Gore's climate change concert. Now, it's the ACLU squaring off against the Democratic congressional leaders. Baaaaaaa.

Won't the animal rights activists be mad then? Or is it that we just aren't worried about them actually strapping bombs on themselves? There's political correctness, then there's not picking on someone who might actually hit back. Not all Muslims are suicide bombers, but most of the suicide bombers have been Muslim. Animal rights activists are usually happy with red paint.

And my favorite topic: global warming, er, climate change, er, the greenhouse effect, no, it's climate change these days. Climate change, then. The term "peer reviewed" is tossed around like it means something. It really means that the article was read by some people and had no grammatical errors and was the correct length and format. No one actually verifies content in a peer-reviewed article. That said, the Journal mentioned sounds legit enough to me, and since I agree with the findings, I'll continue to believe what I was going to believe anyway and cite this thing like it's gold. Just like the people on the other side do with the U.N. report. And biofuels are evil, too. I actually liked that as a possible way to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. I'm not interested in that so much from a "green" perspective as I am from a security perspective. If we need to get into a fight with Saudi Arabia or another oil giant, or when we finally grow a pair and do something about Venezuela, we're going to need all the domestic production of fuels we can get. That means ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refoogee). That means biofuels. That means hydrogen, if we can get that to work. Solar, wind, hydroelectric. I'm kind of surprised ANWR has disappeared from the news recently. The Russians are making claims up that way. We already have the land, why don't we suck out all the oil and ignore their claims? They won't be able to stop us. I know people pitch a fit about drilling up there, but have you ever been up there? Has anyone you know? The answer is no. It's cold, and there is nothing there except some caribou. Not even the eskimos go that far north. And eskimos live in igloos. They live in houses made of ice, and ANWR is too cold for them. Let that sink in for a minute . . . done considering that? Good. I've made my points.

I Take a Couple Days Off

and no one notices. I have a good reason for Saturday's aborted post, but no reason whatsoever for last night except that I didn't feel like writing an update. It's my first full day off since I started back with these updates, so no one better say a word. But, on to updates:

Saturday

Lunch with family at Huey's. Good cheeseburger. After lunch, I pretty much wasted the afternoon in a ground-beef-and-heat induced stupor, sitting under my ceiling fan in front of my box fan, playing Sim City 3000. I ate with my parents and returned to the stupor until around 9 when I decided I'd go clean up and spend the rest of the evening clean and sitting in front of my fan. At 9:20, my well-planned evening of fans and stupor was ripped away when Melissa called and propositioned me. What she said was, "I have a proposition for you." That's propositioning, right? I'm pretty much in another stupor right now, so we're going to assume I'm right. Melissa propositioned me. To go bowling with some people from high school at Cordova Bowling Center. I think I'd seen one of these people (besides Sheena and Melissa) since high school, and it was 4 or 5 years ago when I saw him. I knew them all back then, but we weren't great friends or anything - some classes overlapped, Honor Society, that kind of thing. But I went. Because even though I knew I was being manipulated, it didn't matter. So bowling. Again. For the second time in less than a week. And I'm not that fond of bowling to begin with. It's fun about as often as I usually go - once or twice a year and when it's cheap, but I'd already run out of the fun times while bowling at Lee's party. I talked to the people I hadn't seen in 6 years. I was probably more social in that one night than all through high school. I didn't have a bad time, and I would have enjoyed it more had it been earlier, but I was tired before I got there, and staying up until 1AM just took all the fun out of me. The things we do.

Sunday

I got to sleep in a little. I slept amazingly well all weekend in my old bed. I haven't slept that well there since I moved to Tullahoma. I don't know if it was exhaustion or what, but it was noticeably the best sleep I've gotten at home in a long time. I woke up to breakfast, ate, wandered around the house for a while, ate lunch, watched parts of the Braves game, loaded up my travelling gear, and headed back to Tullahoma. The drive wasn't too bad. A little more traffic than usual, and a ton of U-hauls on the road. I assume both are due to the move-in dates for colleges across this great country of ours. Not much to talk about after I got unloaded.

Monday

Got up about 9, wasted most of an hour playing on the internet, took a shower, and got to school around 10:30. I talked to Dr. Schulz about my thesis approval, gave him the updated draft, and he signed the form and had everything back to my by lunchtime. At 11:56AM Central Daylight Time, the twentieth day of August in the year of our Lord 2007, I officially finished my Master's thesis. And there was much rejoicing. In the form of slurping Jello cups with straws because we're out of plastic spoons in the office. All that's left now is to send the form in to Knoxville, and I think I'm going to need to go to the post office to handle that. The thesis consultant said to send it by priority mail or FedEx, but I think that was just to meet the Friday deadline. Regardless, I'm out of stamps, so I'll have to go to the post office to get more stamps to mail it. I'm probably going to have to go somewhere and get a 9" x 12" envelope, too. They don't say not to fold the form, but I'll pay a little extra and not worry about it.

While at school, I received a call from Huntsville about some questions the local HR person had regarding my information. I called her back, but she was gone for the day (I assume), so I expect she'll call tomorrow morning, and I'll clear up whatever questions there are. Hopefully, I'll have a start date soon. Maybe even a convenient one. Finish my thesis one day, finalize arrangements on my job the next - that's a nice start to the week. At that rate, Friday would be a party with the top 7 hottest Jessicas of all time (well, maybe only the 5 who aren't really old and / or dead). THAT would be a good week.

Now then, that should be a good enough summary of the past few days. I might get motivated in the morning and write an opinion post. I watched the news tonight and heard some interesting things that might make a paragraph or two of editorializing. More tomorrow.

#$^%@&!

It's really hot. I don't know that I've made that point quite clear enough recently. It's really, really, really hot. And I don't like it. Not one bit.

I ate lunch at Huey's today with family. The burger was excellent, as usual.

[4 hour gap in writing]

I got a call from friends and went bowling again. I'll write more tomorrow.

Hey, Last Night was Post #200

I should have inserted bad science fiction references with uninteresting characters and awful dialogue. That would be a great way to give my fans something back after 200 episodes, er, posts.

As suggested yesterday, I was a lazy bum again today. I even went so far as to install SimCity 3000 on my laptop. I refuse to accept the new computer game time-wasters, but the classics are always OK by me. Even though I've had it for years, I never really played SC 3000 much. I did play 2000 a lot, and I think I bought 3000 right before the workload on my classes really started to pick up. That's been so long ago now, though, that it doesn't really matter.

I guess I'm going to call it a night. It's a little earlier than usual, but I'm on vacation. Before I do, though: Happy Birthday, Lee. You don't get a midnight wall post. More tomorrow.

Lazy Bum

That's me. I was worthless today. I slept in, awoke to a ready-made breakfast (it's great visiting home), wasted a few hours between TV and the interweb, ate another meal I didn't cook, and wasted a few more hours. Life is good.

I do need to post about yesterday and explain the title before I get injured for it. Yesterday morning, I met with Dr. Vakili about my last edits to my thesis for him. He made some suggestions, then signed off on my final approval form. I made his suggestions, then met with Dr. Moeller. He had a few more suggestions, which I made, and he signed off on my approval form. That leaves only Dr. Schulz who hasn't approved the final edits on my thesis. See earlier for the reasons why. So I have 2 of 3 required signatures, and the last person won't be in until Monday. It's now about 11 to 11:30 AM. I ask Dr. Moeller if they have any critical work I need to do for their project. There isn't. I decide I'm coming home.

I leave campus around 11:45 and drive back to my apartment. I put my lunch in the toaster oven to warm a little, pack a bag, take out the trash, clean some dishes, eat as I'm finishing all those tasks, and head out the door. Lee needed me to unlock his deadbolt so that the apartment manager could show the place, so I did that. Then, it turns out, I need to unlock the whole place so that the guy can see it. I was just about to hit the highway back to the interstate, but I turned around and went back to Lee's apartment. Guy took 5 minutes to walk around, make some notes, comment that Lee had made his bed, and leave. I locked back up and made for the highway once more. I was headed out of Tullahoma at about 1:30.

The drive was mostly uneventful, with a single exception. North of Murfreesboro on I-24, I was in the left lane, going left-lane speeds, when the truck two cars in front of my swerves into the paved area off the road to the left. Then the car in front of my starts to swerve over, and I see a large round object in the road. It was probably 2 feet in diameter, 8 feet long, mostly in the left lane of traffic, just slightly in the next traffic lane to the right. I swerved (going a little too fast for such a maneuver, but not so fast as to be dangerous) and missed the object. I still couldn't really tell what it was (I was trying to stay on the road, I wasn't looking at it). The car behind me swerved left and made it. The car either one or two behind him continued straight. The car won, but may have been somewhat worse for the battle. By this time, I was well down the interstate, but I saw in the mirrors that a car plowed through the object (which I believe was a roll of carpet or possibly carpet padding), and chunks of the object were airborne. I really couldn't see much else - I was still trying to drive, too. Scary moment, though, when I was approaching something solid-looking in the road while travelling at a high rate of distance.

I got home safely about 5:30, unloaded my stuff, stretched my legs after the drive, and about 6:30 drove over to the location of Lee's birthday celecration. The typo is Jennifer's on the facebook event, but we all embraced it. Facebook won't let you go in and change the names of events, so it stuck. Lee said the extra "c" was for "cash" as in "give Lee cash." Back to the actual event - I'd let Jennifer know I was coming and left the option to her whether or not to tell Lee. Remember, I had talked to him about unlocking his apartment after I decided to come home. So he wasn't expecting me to be there. Maybe not quite a surprise like having him a birthday present of Jessica Alba, but it was all I could manage on short notice. Not that any notice would have allowed me to arrange Jessica Alba, or that I would have done so for him even if I theoretically could.

Mexican food, then bowling. Most of the people I knew from CBU were there, mostly with appropriate spouses / girlfriends, which meant I also got to surprise Sheena (who was there with Garrett). Her response on seeing me was unrepeatable. I'd decided I was going to not tell either of them, since I knew both would be there, and just see the reactions. I emailed Sheena right before I left Tullahoma, and thought I had a chance that she wouldn't notice if I didn't email her back all afternoon. She didn't notice, didn't have a clue I'd driven back until she saw me. I am eeeevil (only 4 e's, none capitalized for this particular act).

Now, finally, the title from yesterday: on my drive home, I'd called Melissa inviting her along to the celecration (I got voicemail, as usual). With 20 people there, no one was going to care for an un-RSVP'ed +1. She called me back right before I left my house. She'd been cleaning her house, and was dirty, and was finishing her second glass of wine, so wasn't sure she should be driving. Therefore: filthy, drunk. I told her I'd drive if she wanted to go (I had to drive within a mile of her house anyway), but she bowed out. I think she just hates Lee. That's the ticket.

I bowled well the first game, rolling a 120-something and winning out of our five. I then became my normal self and bowled in the 60s for the other two games and came in dead last for both of those. Good time, though. And $7 for three games plus shoes ain't a bad deal.

I guess I'm going to be a lazy bum tomorrow, too. I'd play a round of disc golf, but it's going to be way too hot. It's probably going to be hot next week, too. I'll be in Tullahoma then, but I like the course we play in Murfreesboro. I'm on vacation, and I can't even enjoy a round of my preferred pseudo-sport because it's over a hundred degrees outside. Lousy Smarch weather. More tomorrow.

Melissa is Filthy, Drunk

I'll write more later, but that was important to say while I was thinking about it. More in the morning.

Stupid Temperature Scales

I found out that my axis labels on some of my thesis plots were incorrect. The temperature scales were labeled (C) when it should have been (F). So I had to recreate all of those graphs and insert them into the paper. I also found an easy way to take care of the only real criticism Dr. Vakili had - the poorly labeled curves on the graphs. I don't know that it's a perfect correction, but it's as good a solution as I can come to. Now, I just need to find everyone and get them to sign the form.

I need to find a good political argument to get me started on a rant. When I started back blogging, I had a rant almost nightly, but I guess I used them all up. I guess I could rant about the very effective job China has been doing at manufacturing our toys for us, but that seems too obvious right now. There is the nice balance between the need to send manufacturing overseas with the need to maintain a level of control over important aspects of that process, but that can only be boring. I'm bored just thinking about it, and I usually find myself much more interesting than anyone else does.

Will someone just give me this degree, and let me get out of here? More tomorrow.

Someone Was About to Get an Earful

I got up about 8 this morning. I took my time getting ready for school because I needed to talk to Clint (my apartment manager for my place in Tullahoma), and I knew he wouldn't be in until 10 or so. I called a little after 10. He wasn't in. I left a message. I waited. I ate lunch. I had to get work done at school, so about 1, I drove to school. About 1:30 Clint calls me back. The phone rings, but I know there's no reason to answer it at school because I'm about as likely to drop the call as I am to be able to hear a word. He leaves me a message. At school, I realize that I have forgotten an engineering drawing I need in order to do some of the work I need to do. Wonderful. The other reason for going to the school was to talk to my committee about the final edits to my thesis. When I got there, Dr. Schulz had a sign on his door that said, essentially, "Go to Hell, Jeffrey." What it really said was that Dr. Schulz was going to be out of town until Monday. Since my paperwork still needs his signature and is due Friday, you can see how my interpretation is accurate. Dr. Vakili was at school today but was finishing up presentations for his class and was occupied. After the presentations, I knocked on his door, but he didn't answer. So of my three-person committee, the only person I talked to was Dr. Moeller. He wants to see the revised version of my thesis and the edits made by Schulz and Vakili. I'd travelled light to campus, so I had the updated thesis, but not the edits, so he'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

After I left campus, I called Clint back. He's going to let me out of my lease Sept. 15, saving me $237.50. My dad was absolutely sure no one would start a lease on the 15th and that I'd never get out of this lease mid-month, but both have occurred. It's going to put some pressure on me to get moved in about a 36-hour window, but I don't have a ton of stuff. It is more than I moved up here, though. The bed is new, so are the couch, the washer and dryer, and a couple pieces of smaller furniture. If the weather is nice, it's no problem since there'll be two trucks to go along with the trailer. It'll be tricky to fit everything in a covered place if the weather turns bad, though. That weekend will be tiring, though.

About two good paragraphs is about all I've been writing the past few days. There's not a lot going on. It's hot so I don't feel like doing much. I will wish Amy good luck for tomorrow. She's got a job interview at 9:30. Good luck, Amy, and more tomorrow.

Me Want Sleep

I have gotten up at 7am the past two days. I do not like it, not one bit. Yesterday, it was to get an early start for the drive to Huntsville. Today, it was for no good reason. I do need to start getting up earlier, but I didn't necessarily need to start today. It's not quite 10 o'clock, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it until 10. I think I'm just going to go to sleep right here in my chair.

I need to force myself to call my apartment manager in the morning. I need to give him 30 days notice for my move-out. Hopefully, he'll let me pro-rate for the partial month of September. That would be nice. I'm planning to move the 15th anyway, so I shouldn't need this apartment anymore after then. If I have to keep it through the end of the month, it's not the end of the world, but it's money I might could save otherwise.

I've put it off as long as I can, it's time to get to sleep. More tomorrow.

My Place to Live

Well, I made it to Huntsville and back today. I found me a place to live for the next 6 months or so. It's the Charleston Oaks Apartments in Madison, AL. Looking at that map, near the center you should see two tennis courts, right of those is a swimming pool, right of that swimming pool is a set of four buildings around another swimming pool. Maybe you can jump right to the swimming pool in the middle of the four buildings. Either way, my apartment will be on the ground floor of the left building of the four around the right swimming pool. It's 2 bedroom / 2 bathroom, and it's not way off the charts expensive. It is more than I'm paying here, but everything is more than I'm paying here. I also get 5% off each month, and I got $43 off the application fee for being a government employee. It's not a lot, but every little bit helps.

The second-best place I looked was the same place I'd lived before when I was down there. It was a little more expensive, but I knew the apartment complex and the manager. I apparently did not know their Saturday sales girl. I would have remembered her. She's a finance major at Calhoun Community College starting to UAH this term. She also said she works as an intern at the Missile Defense Agency. At least I'm pretty sure that's what she said. She wasn't overly clear, and my focus may have been split.

I'll distribute my address to anyone who wants it, but not here, and not on Facebook. There are too many ways too many people can find things for me to post them in either of those ways. Maybe I'm overly cautious, but I'm not going to change now. More tomorrow.

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me

Some great episodes on Firefly were on during the marathon on SciFi today. I really only watched one, but since I've seen them all, and have them all, so it's no big loss. I spent most of the afternoon entertaining my dad, who is up for the weekend. We spent some time looking at the apartments in Huntsville I found online. Mostly, he kept talking about the great channels I have here that we don't have in Memphis. Fascintating.

After an always-excellent meal at Rafael's Italian Restaurant, I watched the end of the Braves' game, then the USA orginal program Psych. I like the show, even if I do call the bad guy about a half-hour before the fake psychic does. It's also good to see that Dule Hill (Charlie from West Wing) has landed on his feet. Now if only that Martin Sheen guy could get some name recognition.

I have to get up early in the morning, so that's all for tonight.

Neutral Vice President: Your Neutralness, it's a beige alert.
Neutral President: If I don't survive, tell my wife "Hello."

More tomorrow.

Good News, Everyone!

I don't actually have any news, good, bad, or otherwise. I just want to be able to say that to a class, like the Professor on Futurama. As long as it doesn't conflict with my other goal of being a noted misanthrope. I don't see how they'd conflict. Being a professor would probably help with that goal. I could certainly be noted within a university. My plan comes together.

I didn't do much at all today. I looked up some apartments in Huntsville. I probably should have worked on my thesis edits, but I didn't want to. I needed a day off after my thesis defense. Not so much needed as wanted and had no reason not to take. I'm going to try to get some work done tomorrow, but I doubt I'll really accomplish much until Monday. Saturday I'm going down to Huntsville to look at apartments, and I'm not all that useful on weekends anyway.

Today, at Dairy Queen, all proceeds from the sale of blizzards went to the Children's Miracle Network. Lee and I did our parts to help the children by buying blizzards. We reminded both Amy and Heather yesterday, and Amy again today, but I don't know if either chose to help children. Amy acted like she was going to when we talked to her today, but I don't know if she did or not. It was all for the children and had nothing at all to do with blizzards being good food.

Well, I need to get to sleep so that I can straighten my apartment up in the morning. More tomorrow.

What's Next?

I was on a West Wing quotes hunt last night and found tonight's title. It's a repeated line for "I'm bored with this now, let's do something else for a while." My first recollection of the phrase was a flashback to the first presidential campaign, when his advisors are explaining the process for the primaries. The story really isn't important, and the quote really stands on its own. I just wanted it as my title tonight because I PASSED MY THESIS DEFENSE. I'm on to what's next. Yes, that was a really convoluted way of making the point that I PASSED MY THESIS DEFENSE, but have you been reading this site at all? Convoluted is what I do. It's my thing.

There was a minor issue (read: huge hassle) about the time of the defense. It was supposed to be at 1 this afternoon, but Dr. Moeller and Dr. Schulz needed to reschedule a test (of the same rig that my data came from) for 12:30, so they wanted to move the defense to last from 2 to 3. The secretary heard that as "move the defense from 2 to 3" (which is probably what was said) and interpreted it as "defense is at 3 now." I really didn't care what time the defense was, except for being really hot in my suit, so that didn't bother me so much as just annoy me that things were changing. Lee said his head would have exploded due to the change. As close as I was to finishing this thing, nothing was going to stop me today. Not a 100 degree room; not an evil projector that didn't like to fit the screen; not Dr. Vakili trying to kill said projector while trying to make it fit the screen; not Lee, Heather, and Amy stealing the chocolates I left for the professors; not me making things up as I went along. But it's done. I PASSED MY THESIS DEFENSE.

Now, I'm going to go to sleep and not waking up for a week. Maybe 10AM. More tomorrow.

Wal-Mart on Tuesday Night

The one in Tullahoma, at least, is empty. I needed supplies for producing cornbread and some mind-control chocolate to help my thesis defense along tomorrow afternoon, so I headed up there about 7:30. The parking lot had about 4 cars in it. Inside was just about as empty. It was following the standard Wal-Mart policy of only two registers open, but there still wasn't much of a line. It's almost like someone up here actually knows how to schedule shifts. THAT would be noteworthy. Yes, I know I just wrote a paragraph about Wal-Mart. I'm from the South.

I finished up my thesis defense PowerPoint today and printed off copies to hand out to my committee. I also printed myself a copy of the thesis itself, for reference if I need it. I also talked with Dr. Schulz about his comments on my draft. I was hoping to pre-empt questions at the defense. I don't know if that will work, but it was worth the effort. The only person I haven't heard from is Dr. Vakili. I'm not sure if that's his style, or he just got busy, or what, but he was the least familiar with the experiment and the methodology, so hopefully he won't be too hard on me.

Moeller told me to aim for about a 40-minute presentation with time for questions pushing the entire defense to an hour or so. I have a 33-slide PowerPoint. There's no way it lasts 40 minutes on its own. I'm going for a smaller prepared section, and if their questions don't last very long, it'll just be a short defense. It's supposed to be a defense of the thesis, not an explanation of it. (That's my story anyway.) My work can stand on its own merits; it shouldn't need me to explain it. I understand that's part of the deal, but it's the paper that survives in an archive somewhere, not the presentation.

As for the presentation, I feel prepared for it. I didn't really do much with it tonight. Big tests I will review for, but I try not to do too much the night before. It's the same with this presentation. I don't want to over-think things. I do well with extemporaneous speaking. I enjoy the adrenaline rush. Nice suit. 3 Ph.D.'s against me. That's my time.

Leo McGarry: You know, sometimes, I don't even know what you're talking about.
President Josiah Bartlet: Sometimes I'm just making it up.

More tomorrow.

That's called range, America

Cracked.com - Battle of the Jessicas. That's all I'm going to say about the title tonight.

Before I left for school this morning, Lee had already messaged me that Dr. Schulz was looking for me. Turns out, he needed someone to tie on a couple tourniquets (I spelled that right the first time, I am amazed) because he'd been bleeding all over my thesis all weekend. And, according to Dr. Moeller, he said it was well-written and a good thesis, overall. There are pages with more red ink (his) than black (mine). At least it was well-written. I hate to think about the school's red pen budget if it hasn't been. Most of his "recommendations" are little things, change a word here, a phrase there, the entire meaning of the thesis here, but they add up. He did catch a big problem within my figures. When I typed the legends, I spelled "Estimate" as "Estmate," and that got carried though to about 20 figures. He also likes repeating the same criticism over and over again. He didn't think I defined a quantity well, so any time that calculation popped up later in the paper, he has a note in the margin that it wasn't defined. Even a couple times where the calculation itself isn't mentioned, there's the note in the margin. I do love the note at one point where he makes a "recommendation" followed by "I quibble." He's as much as admitted his suggestion is just there because he felt like making a suggestion, not because it's really needed. A lot of his notes, I can't tell if it's something that I'm supposed to address in the paper better or just notes he was making to himself. He'll have notes off to the sides of figures: "seems noisier" when I know that I mention that myself in the paper. I'm going to try to make some notes and talk to him tomorrow, just to see what needs to be addressed and what doesn't. I do like the description I just came up with for Dr. Schulz: he like Londino on crack after a weekend doing speed. Yes, I went there.

As I approach the deadline, I'm not sure how much I really want this degree. Let me rephrase, I'm not sure how much I want to do this defense in order to earn the degree. It's not nerves. It's that this is a pain. I've got all these edits to do, a PowerPoint to finish (the only reason it's not done now is that I need to figure out what else I need to cover because of the comments Schulz made). I know I wasted some time while writing the thesis, so these edits are getting to me closer to the defense than they might could have, had I worked harder, but they wouldn't have been any less annoying. In fact, there may have been two rounds of edits from the committee if I'd been done sooner. Because none of us is as dumb as all of us.

I'm going to start putting a McDonald's wrapper around the food I cook myself (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/08/06/health/webmd/main3139085.shtml). Although, I don't guess I really need food to taste any better. It's a conundrum. More tomorrow.

Lost Weekend

I didn't get anything done this weekend. I swore I wasn't going to be like Brent and still be working on my presentation for the defense the night before, and I still think I can finish tomorrow, but I didn't get nearly as much done this weekend as I wanted. I have just started figuring out how I want to arrange the presentation, and it's been a lot of trouble to try to keep all these pictures organized. I moved the bulk of the pictures into PowerPoint onto their own slides, to have as a backup in case I get asked about something in the thesis that isn't in the presentation. This is also a tough presentation because presumably my committee have all read my thesis, and it's supposed to be a defense of the thesis, but I'm also doing a presentation, which has to cover the same information as I wrote in the paper. I'm trying to strike a balance between just re-stating my thesis and covering the same information.

On the list of things I did this weekend while I should have been working on my presentation is the organization of my music collection. Most of it was still organized from the Second Great Laptop Crash of last spring, but I've added quite a bit of music since then. I added any missing information, put the files in the correct folders, and added everything back into iTunes. Just for the record, I have a lot of music, and a lot of Johnny Cash. One thing I didn't do was check for duplicates of Johnny Cash songs. I have several CDs, many of which contained the same songs. Sometimes they were different versions, like the At San Quintin live version and studio cuts of several songs. And it's Johnny Cash, so if it comes up a little more often, no one is going to complain. And if they do, it's my music, so they can shut up.

When most of you read this, it should be the 62nd anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon in war. I guess by time zones, the anniversary is actually today for most of the U.S., but the recorded date is August 6, 1945. We've been fortunate as a people that such devastation hasn't been necessary since 1945. I believe it was Einstein who said, "I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World Wat IV will be fought with sticks and stones." More tomorrow.

Space Library Heads Towards Mars

http://www.space.com/news/070804_phoenix_spacelibrary.html

Pay special attention to the GLASS DVD and the fact that it is careening towards Mars. I also love the implication that the DVD contained explosive gases. What they mean is that any gas trapped within the material could exert forces strong enough to break the disc, but what it sounds like is that this "super strong" glass contains pockets of high explosive. The science in this article is staggeringly bad, as is the science fiction. Someone could have fed some homeless people with the money they spent on this project. That is the standard criticism of the space program, right? I've opined on this before. It's probably longer ago than I realize, but I didn't intend to launch into a rant on it tonight.

I found out today that one of my high school friends in serving in Iraq. He was in all the science / math classes I was, and he was on the wrestling team. He's also just a good guy. He did ROTC to help defray some of the costs of his MIT Mechanical Engineering degree. I'm not sure what his job over there is. One can hope it's non-combat with his engineering degree, but he's still in Iraq and even non-combat isn't what we'd call safe. I don't have the circulation on this page that I did back in undergrad or even earlier in grad school, but I'd ask anyone who does follow this page to keep the servicemen and women in your thoughts and wish them safety wherever they are. This quote is on his facebook page, and I can think of nothing better to say right now than this:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt

More tomorrow.

I Never Expected Them to Admit It

I've been having a war of wills with the UTK thesis consultant. You see, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville governs all of our programs. This means, among other things, that any thesis or dissertation from UTSI must meet the standards set by UTK. The UTK standard for a thesis or dissertation applied to every such paper. From any subject. That means my engineering thesis must meet the same standard as an English thesis, or Archaeology, or Spanish, assuming UTK offers degrees in all those things. Whatever you think of all those subjects, you have to admit, they are nowhere near the same. But a thesis for the degree must be. Anyway, back to my situation. I have a 116-page thesis. Of that, one of the chapters has 48 pages of figures (a total of 96 graphs produced by the analysis I performed). These graphs have to be in the thesis somewhere because they are the only way to see what I did. They are the thesis (along with the conclusions about the graphs). So I have these graphs two to a page and separated in sections by headings. Something like "Run 24 - Nov. 7, 2005" - just to separate the different data sets. In the next chapter of the thesis, I discuss the graphs. Normally, when discussing a figure, you put the figure immediately after the first paragraph that mentions it. Doing that here would have resulted in such a mess that I decided to dedicate one chapter to the graphs, and the next chapter to a discussion of the graphs. It seems both the headings and the organization violate the format. Headings are only to be used when separating text, and a figure cannot appear before it is referenced in the text. The text is the most important part, according to the formatting guide. For science, this is stupid. STUPID. Figures and tables are the key to most every scientific paper. So the consultant and I have been arguing (in the polite sense) about this for several emails back and forth. She didn't quite tell me everything I've just told you until an email today. This is my favorite quote from the email: "you are thinking of these things logically, when in fact the rules are somewhat arbitrary." That sentence means, essentially, that I'm right, and UTK is wrong, but I'm not going to win this fight so just shut up about it. I can remove the headings - that's no big deal. I like them in there for reference, but if UTK doesn't like them, I'll drop them. The other thing, with the figures themselves, I think I can just add a line that says something like "The results are presented in Figures 1 - 96." and that will be fine. At least it better be. This has already been a headache to format, and if I need to find a way to reformat that whole huge chunk of my thesis, I might choke someone across the room by clenching my fist. (They'll have to come back with facial hair and a new name so that I won't catch on that I don't have that ability.)

Oh, and the Thesis Consultant sends me emails with Smiley Faces in them. The emoticons that get converted to actual symbols. Yeah, an employee of the University of Tennessee sends smiley faces to a student at the University. I'm also an employee, and a graduate student, but let's maintain some form of professional decorum.

There was a cool show on the History channel tonight about the engineering of the F-14 Tomcat. They went through a lot of the actual, honest-to-goodness engineering process on it. I was impressed with the show, and the Fighter jet. The F-14 was not the first jet to use the variable-sweep wings. A couple different planes had used it prior to the development of the Tomcat, but the F-14 was the first to have the sweep angle computer-controlled. The wings adjusted from 20 degrees at low speeds to 68 degrees at high speeds. The transition would begin about Mach 0.7 and be complete at around Mach 0.95. That plane could also carry almost its own weight in munitions. It weighed 40,000 pounds without bombs and missiles, and 74,000 pounds fully loaded. Those are two significantly different design points. Also, it's just a cool airplane.

Hey, look over there! More tomorrow.

In Extra Innings, Lead-Off Walks Usually Score, Unless They Don't

I don't know if that's a Yogi Berra quote, but I like it. The Braves game went into overtime, and the opposing pitcher walked the first batter of the 11th. As I write this, the inning isn't over, so we don't know if he'll score (winning the game) or not.

While we're on sports, Lee would probably get mad if I didn't mention his nice sports metaphor today. We were discussing some of the UTSI lab guys. One guy works in this lab, another works in that lab. Lee and Heather then mentioned another guy, who Lee aptly described as a "utility player" - he sort of had responsibilities all over the place. He spoiled it by waiting for me to congratulate him on the sports reference, but it was a nice effort.

Well, the leadoff walk didn't work, and the Astros took the lead in the 12th. It's now the bottom of the inning, and the Braves have tied it again. There aren't enough players left for this game to go much longer. That only stops All-Star games, so something will give at some point. My game, my team, my south. Go Braves.

Good grief, this is a long game. I've been watching while writing this, and it's taken me what seems like hours to get back around to writing with each break. I'm going to have to stop writing, just so I can get ready to go to bed. More tomorrow.

Big Steamin' Pile of Theses

It is indescribable to have my thesis done. I had a few last minute changes to make today (the thesis consultant in Knoxville got back to me), and that took a couple hours. When I was done with that, I couldn't find either my advisor or the wing secretary I needed to talk to in order to get my thesis printed on the color printer. (Turns out, they were in some seminar.) Then, a bunch of the undergrads mobbed the secretary to get their pay stubs, making me wait even longer. Finally, I was able to get my thesis printed. Even on a fast color printer, three copies of a 116-page document takes some time, but since that was all I had to do today, I wasn't complaining. With the heat from the printer, it was one big steamin' pile of theses. I distributed the copies to my thesis committee, pretended to care for another 10 minutes or so, then headed out of there. My thesis is done and in the hands of reviewers. There may be some final edits, but the hard part is done, finished, complete.

I got started tonight on my PowerPoint for the defense. I didn't do anything but adjust the cool background Brent let me have and add in my own touches. The text area is a little smaller than I'd like, but I'll make do. I'm going to try to finish the PowerPoint as quickly as I can, so that I can spend some time relaxing before the defense. I don't want to be finishing the presentation the same day I defend it. I doubt I'll practice much, because the defense is going to be "informal" which translates to "annoying." Dr. Moeller told me to expect questions during and after the presentation. I get that it's a defense, not a true presentation, and they can do whatever they want, but that's only going to throw me off track. I also expect that they'll ask questions on points I'm just about to cover. I'm going to have to be careful not to call anyone Hot Rod.

The news is boring, and I'm tired. More tomorrow.