Yet another summary blog

I am drunk on a Friday night. I almost never get drunk, but after the last couple of days...

First the good:

1. I rode my bike yesterday. 28 miles (14 to work, 14 home). I felt like a real man. I didn't eat dinner yesterday or lunch today. I think I have lost a little weight. Which is a good start. I still need to lose about 15 pounds, but, for the beginning of spring, I have a relatively good start on things.

2. Uh... The dog hasn't taken a crap in the house in like 2 weeks. And she hasn't peed in the house in a week. Good times!

3. Hmmm... more good things.... Did I mention that I am drunk?

Now the bad:

1. Work. Pretty much every f*cking aspect of it. We have given our codes to this place that makes runs available to the general community. They run and run and run and let people request runs and do all sorts of stuff for people. They are having problems with our code. Months ago, they were having issues because they were getting a result that they liked (a non physical current at the boundary). I explained why this occurred, but they wanted me to fix it. Well, it turns out that they were using nonphysical conditions to begin with - they want to run with these nonphysical conditions and get physically meaningful results. I tried to explain to them how this wasn't really the way the code worked. They basically threatened to use someone else's code. Ok. I explained that I wasn't really making up the laws of nature here. If you runs this other guy's code with nonphysical conditions, then you are going to get the same nonphysical type of answers - unless he cheats. Well, they didn't use the other guy's code and the issue was basically dropped. Now, it has surfaced again. They are running the code in a completely different regime and they are still using the nonphysical condition. They didn't tell me this, though. They just told me that they were having problems, and another person in my group pointed at my code, and said, it's probably this code's fault. So, I spent all day yesterday and today working on this problem, only to find out tonight that it was most likely all due to them using nonphysical conditions. And, when I said, don't use those conditions, they came back with "well, what SHOULD we use..." Uh, physical conditions. Like other runs that you do. You know. When the code works (like 95+%) of their simulations). Do those types of runs. It just pisses me off that I have to spend my time on this crap when I could be doing real work.

2. I haven't cooked a real meal in ages. Our kitchen is a complete disaster. We have to do our taxes. I have to do my brother's taxes. I have to do laundry again, and last week's laundry hasn't even been put away yet. The toilet bowl cleaning consists of me wiping it with some toilet paper and calling it good. I didn't get home until 8:30 last night. There are shredded toilet paper roles all over the basement and first floor, because we don't have enough energy to sweep them up. And the dog will just produce more, so, what's the point? We have had pizza boxes in our recycle bin every week for the last month (not a good sign). You get the point.

3. My Post Doc sucks. It's only been two weeks. I have to give him a break. I am trying to. I am trying to be extremely patient. I am trying to not be myself. Except, that by not being myself, I am actually being myself. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt for long periods of time, and then get so incredibly frustrated with them, that I explode all over everything. Which is basically what I am doing, giving him the benefit of the doubt. I need to have more open communication. That is the real issue. When someone starts disappointing me, I start avoiding them, since I am pissed off. What I really need to do is talk to them (only, where do you find the time??? It is so much easier just to avoid the issue all together!) As an example, I gave him an extremely concrete thing to do - figure out this model output from this web site. If you can't figure it out, e-mail the author and ask her an extremely simple question. Then we can implement the model in our code and see what it does. We discussed this a week ago, and he has not done it. I completely understand that he is adjusting to living here and has not had a desktop computer (but has a laptop) to do work on, but this is a very, very easy task. Now what???

Ok, I am going to give up on life and try to flush myself down the toilet. Wish me luck!

Robots!

I am here at my daughter's robotics class. She is doing this in the evenings. Theoretically, she is learning C, too, but not really. They are still playing with building the robots without actually programming them. Four boys and my daughter. And, if I am not biased, she is probably the best one there. Totally unbiased. She was actually the lead programmer for her Lego Robotics team last year. Yeah, she pretty much kicks ass (Crab-Girl, if you are reading this at some point in the future, you do kick ass!)

Was I this geeky when I was a kid? The guy who is running the class is something like 15 years old. He is a super geek. I think that I would have qualified as being in this category also. I don't know if he is wearing tube socks with his wallet in his sock, but maybe that was only cool in the 80s? Ok, enough ragging on poor 15 year-old kids that will eventually grow up to be me....

Music

I love music. I love listening to music. I would have it on all of the time, just because. I have actually, at times, been listening to something soft and delicate and said to my self, I should listen to music and move to put something on, and realized that there was already music playing. I just is so much a part of me.

I like a wide variety of music, but I have to admit, that I don't wander off the beaten path too much. Most of the music that you would find on my computer is music that you could hear on SOME radio station. What typically happens is that I hear a song that I really love, and then I go out and get every album by that band/person. Some examples:

1. Oingo Boingo. Everyone knows "Weird Science", but very few people have pretty much everything that they have ever made (well, I don't have everything...) "Cinderella Undercover" is one of the best songs ever made. "The cartoon animals on Old McDonald's Farm, are nodding off with needles in their arms."

2. B-52s. "Love Shack"? You think that's the best there is? "Rock Lobster" and "Wig" are the best. Then "Planet Clare" and "Private Idaho". Come on. It doesn't get any better than this. When you are cleaning the house on a bright spring day, nothing is better.

3. Metallica. Hell Yeah. These guys rock. But, I have to admit, that most of the popular songs are their best songs. "One" is so unbelievable. "Master of Puppets" is ok, but there are definitely better.

4. Kate Bush. Ok, I haven't listened to here in a long, long time. Haven't listened to Tori Amos much lately either.

5. Springsteen. Nebraska is one of the best albums ever made. Tunnel of Love. That is some good stuff.

6. We are on a Coldplay kick. Not gay, but love Coldplay.

Ok, I don't need to go through all the music I listen to. You pretty much get the point. It is close to the path. Not exactly on it, but close.

Just getting by

I am feeling guilty because I haven't written anything in a while. So here is a catch-up blog:

1. My students took a test on Tuesday. In preparation, one of the GSIs held a review session (he was sick of getting e-mail questions also). I bet him a beer that the test grades would be unaffected by (a) the fact that we tried to put together a very nice test and (b) he was holding a review session. I don't know about the other sections of the test yet, but the multiple choice average was 81%, which I bet him it would be 82% +/- 2%. Nailed it. I guess I am a cynical old bastard. But right.

2. I went to Washington DC for a 1-day meeting on what type of science you can do from a suborbital platform that will be launched every few days (think commercial space ventures). The general idea is that only rich people will pay $200,000 to go into space, but a $200,000 is cheap for a rocket flight from NASA's standards. It is quite interesting. The flights are about 10 minutes long. You experience 5g on the way up and 6g on the way down. And are ~weightless~ for something like 3 minutes. That would be really cool. But, I bitch about spending $50 each for all day at Lego Land.

3. I rode my bike from downtown to home. I was hardly tired, which is a good sign. My butt didn't hurt either. Great. I think I am going to bribe the kids to let me go for bike ride tomorrow.

4. My new Post Doc started work about a week ago. It will be an interesting ride. He has an interesting personality. I am not sure that I understand it right now. I will try to keep you posted. We ordered a computer for him a week ago and it still hasn't come in. That is frustrating. You basically can't work without a computer. He is very intent on doing one specific thing, while I want him to work on other things. While it is ok for him to work on this one thing a bit, it is what he keeps coming back too. I really hope that he works out....

5. I finally got a grad student to agree to come work with us. He is from just down the road. Seems like a nice guy. He actually works in the building with some other folks right now, who really like him. Good programmer, which is what I really need too. So, I am hopeful on that front.

6. With Obama's $3,000,000,000 infusion of cash into the National Science Foundation, and an increase in next year's budget of something like 10%, it may be a very good year for me. We shall see. I was told a few months ago that if the 09 budget is passed, I will get a grant. So, it has passed. Further, I was on another (hardware) grant for something like $2M. That now has a very good chance of being funded. And I have been asked by people to write another (hardware) grant for about $2+M (depending on the language of the NSF major research instrumentation grant call for proposals). If all of this money comes in, I am going to have to hire a large number of people to help out. And I have a NASA grant that is pending that I was told should be announced on March 19. It is now well beyond this date. Typically, if you are informed by the date, it is bad news. So, the longer it takes, the better the news may be.

7. New Yellow Dog still pees in house. News at 11. Actually, she is doing really well, except for at night around 9 PM, when we just have walked her an hour before, so we don't believe that she really has to pee. Then she does. In the house. So, now we are taking her outside all of the freaking time. During our only resting time. Nice. But, whatever.

8. I read 4 student papers in 2 days. These are full up, submitting to a major journal papers, not undergraduate class papers. What a pain in the ass.

9. I have 2 more to read that are not student papers. Interestingly, both are by the same first author. I am co-author on one and (anonymously) reviewing the other for a Journal. Strange.

10. I have gotten a few "Death Cab for Cutie" albums (what do you call a collection of mp3s now? Not a disk. Not an album. A pod?) I bought one from Amazon ($9.97 for mp3 downloads, which is a okish deal... at least they will play on other things besides an iPod, which I don't have - I have a Blackberry).

11. On that note, I hate the way the Blackberry handles multimedia. It sucks donkey balls. And you can quote me. This is my official review for my Blackberry: "e-mail - ok; surfing the web - sucks; Blackberry mapping program - sucks; Google maps on blackberry - awesome; mp3 player - sucks donkey balls; and as a phone - ok." When you move all of your mp3s onto the memory card, and restart the blackberry, it makes some sort of a database of the songs and such. Only, it takes it about 10 minutes to do this (every time you turn on or off your BB - think about airplanes....) And then, if this was the only issue, it would be fine, but no, it actually looses songs and whole albums. So, one time you turn it on, the new Death Cab for Cutie album shows up, but the next time, it doesn't. So, you reboot. Doesn't show up. Screw it, listen to something else. Another interesting feature is if you listen to music while it is trying to build this database, it stops building it. So, what you have when you start building is it. Now, it doesn't loose it off the memory card, it just doesn't figure out that it is there. Really irritating. Contract is up in November. Can anyone say "iPhone for Christmas?" Oh, I can.

12. Crab boy is growing his hair out long. He looks so shaggy now it is unbelievable.

13. Crab girl got her bottom pallet expander. Crab Mama had to bribe her with ice cream for a week to do it. Small bribe for what she will get out of it. Her top expander is working miracles - she has something like 6+ mm of more space up there. Hopefully they won't have to yank more teeth when all of her adult teeth come in. I had 8 yanked. Maybe they can keep her to 4....???

14. We lost connection to out instrument that is sitting out on the Antarctic continent. It is literally in the middle of no where. It took six weeks to get people in there to deploy it. I strongly advocated to put it at McMurdo (which is about a week to get to and a few days to get home from) for a year to field test it. I was outvoted ("why do we need to test it when it is an almost copy of the last one that we built???" Oh, it turns out that they have lots of failures on Iridium modems - and if they fail, your instrument is basically dead in the water.) I am pretty sick of being outvoted by people and doing it their way, only to have a big old turd drop on us. I am going to start bringing up all of the turds. They will be flying around like a turd storm if people dismiss what I say any more. Turds will be hitting the fan. It had to be said.

15. Crab Mama just left the room to go to bed. So, I guess my time has come.

Later.

Pansy-*ss Students

For the last few semesters, I have given students a list of questions that may appear on the test. I then say that if you can answer all of these questions, you will probably do really well on the test.

Now, this semester, a number of students have e-mailed me and my GSIs direct questions directly from my power point, asking me to answer the questions. WTF is that about? I can not believe that students would come out and just cut and paste questions from the ppt doc and ask me to answer them. Why don't you show up to class? Even the last class, in which I read all of the questions to the students and allowed them to ask questions. Like "can you answer that one?" To which, I asked for anyone else in the class to answer it. They usually did. If no one knew the answer, I answered it in detail.

I really think that this is because I don't require students to attend class. I think that I have a LARGE part of the class that doesn't bother showing up at all. That really pisses me off.

It says something fundamental about the way that I am. If I give you freedom, I expect you to pull your end, and not f*ck around. It seems like a lot of people don't understand that. I imagine that I don't communicate that very well. I will have to try harder.

It is sort of like putting a sign on yourself that says "hey, walk all over me!" and being pissed off when people do. The sign comes off now.

granny taxes

My mother (Crab-Granny) is sitting next to me. Waiting on hold with the IRS so we can finish up e-filling her taxes. She recommended that I blog about it an use swear words. So - sh*t.

Space

Two years ago, when I moved into a Tenure-Track position I was given lab space. I told them "I don't have any hardware projects, so I don't need this space right now." I was told that yes I do need that space, because space is like gold - you horde it and don't give it up.

So, I used the space to teach in. I have a lab class in which they build stuff. Instead of using the crowded student labs and have to work out schedules with the other faculty to share the space, I just use my own lab space for student activities. About a week ago, my department chair comes into the office and asks me what I am using my lab space for, since we are hiring new faculty and we need space (and he knows that I don't have a hardware project right now). I tell him that I am using it for student space. He coughs a bit and tells me that I am not supposed to do that. There is student lab space for student activities. I tell him that it is crowded etc. He basically says so what, and I am pretty sure he is going to take the space away.

I just got off the phone with the building manager, who asked me what I am using my lab space for. Hint hint. The end is drawing near.

I have been writing grants and such to actually get hardware projects. We just need a little patience. But, my department chair doesn't have patience. So, I will probably lose my lab space. And the students will then lose their space. And this will happen the same month that I win a grant to do hardware. I am absolutely sure of this.

So, NSF program directors, if you are listening, please give me even a tiny bit of money, so I can convince my chair to let me keep my lab. Please.

This really sort of pisses me off, since I didn't want the damn space in the first place. Now that I am actually using it for what I think is a good cause, they are going to take it away because education is not important in our department. Space is important.