Tom 7 Radar: Wherein I discuss the weekend's events and the plans for the future

[ back to Tom 7 Radar ]

r
e
c
a
p

Wherein I discuss the weekend's events and the plans for the future (14 Feb 2006 at 14:45)

My, how my blogosquare internet home site stagnates when things get busy. A momentous weekend; highlights:

We went XC skiing (I thought it was rather unique, but a wordlist search reveals many other ii words: antiinflammatory, safariing, zombiism, radii, shanghaiing, etc.) at the illustrious "Hidden Valley Resort" as part of an EPP or Civil Engineering trip. Since I was uncharacteristically sick for several weeks (influenza then a peritonsillar abscess—please do not look it up, it is disgusting) this was the first exercise I had gotten in a long time. XC (I like to refer to it this way, like "eXtreme") is harder than one might naīvely think but we did eventually get the hang of it, and I did eventually lose the feeling that it was just hiking with awkward slippery devices attached to one's feet. After lunch Allison's advisor showed us to a nice obscure trail—this was the weekend of the nor'easter so I had to put my CT snowdriving skills to the test—which was really beautiful and cold and we saw this weird monument in the woods to three people who had been "killed" (no other explanation, to the rumor mill's delight) one hundred ten years and nineteen days earlier.

Even more momentous: On the way to the skiing place, Van 7 II's (there you are, another ii word) odometer rolled over to 100,000 miles. I reset the trip odometer so that they are now synchronized, and nobody is allowed to touch that thing! It's important, you know, to have redundant measuring.

What else? After the skiing trip was the nth annual "Anti-VD" party, with "VD" standing doubly for Valentine's Day (happy it, by the way, if you like!) and Venerial Disease. I made some good posters. I won Twister, a stockin' feet game, six times in a row with these awesome cowboy pants providing the needed freedom of motion.

We have been working on ideas for the IFCP Programming Contest, which CMU is organizing this summer. I am totally psyched about this, and it is very frustrating to not be able to say anything about it, since secrecy about the contest is pretty important. Anyway, if you are not at CMU, I hope that you will enter. If you are in the POP group and interested in pouring a whole load of time into this and keeping your mouth shut, let me know!

If you have been reloading my weblog continuously for the last few days you might have noticed further nearly invisible steps in its modernization. Now it uses CSS for most stuff, and I am not limited to 6 predefined categories, and behind the scenes there are a bunch of cool javascript administration features. I am getting into this web scripting stuff now. Soon when you go to my website it will just be dancing and right click disabled and popping up windows and scrolling text and playing classical music via midi files OMG awesome

Another thing: I am proposing my thesis on Monday, February 20th. Scheduling was a mild nightmare, but now it's really happening! You can read my proposal document if you like, and I will post (much more pleasant) slides from my talk soon enough. Anyway, another very busy week ahead...

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Anonymous (pool-70-20-111-213.pitt.east.verizon.net) – 02.15.06 07:37:33

Good luck on your proposal talk ... knock their socks off!!!

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

mjn (pool-141-157-243-47.ny325.east.verizon.net) – 02.15.06 13:20:10

Hey, that contest looks like fun. Are you allowed to reveal when it's going to happen?

P.S. good luck proposin'

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (gs82.sp.cs.cmu.edu) – 02.15.06 13:35:39

Sure, except that we haven't set a date yet. It will be some time during the summer, probably for a weekend like usual. But the wheels are sure churning...

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Pikaphreak (adsl-70-130-241-80.dsl.stlsmo.swbell.net) – 02.19.06 22:54:55

Wow, those pants and that shirt don't just clash, they're fighting to the death. :) Good luck on the proposal too.

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-85.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 02.20.06 09:41:47

Cortney won't let me borrow them for my thesis proposal!

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

a mean lady (chiggins.ce.cmu.edu) – 02.20.06 09:52:06

You can buy your own -- Target!

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (lolo.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 02.20.06 12:15:58

Really? Man, that's two things I need from Target now...

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Cortney (chiggins.ce.cmu.edu) – 02.20.06 14:19:56

let me know if you're taking a trip that way -- I need water filters. I think we are going with the on-tap system and filters are cheap there.

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (h-72-244-69-85.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 02.20.06 15:03:10

OK, let's go some time! Maybe this week..

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Cortney (chiggins.ce.cmu.edu) – 02.23.06 10:02:42

I seemed to have misplaced the cowboy pants. I'm not sure where they are. I'm very sad about this.

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (h-67-100-132-203.phlapafg.dynamic.covad.net) – 02.23.06 10:13:05

No!!

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

Tom 7 (lolo.wv.cc.cmu.edu) – 04.03.06 17:14:19

They were found!

p
o
s
t

a

c
o
m
m
e
n
t

[ Tom 7 Radar • Tom 7 on Google+ • on Twitter • on Facebook ]