While my trip to Minnesota has been great, I'm looking forward to heading back to Boston tonight. Skye is going to pick me up at the airport, and it will be really nice to see her.
I've meant to write about this for some time, and maybe I already have. Regardless, I'm going to write about it now: working at an airport has to be the most frustrating job around. The people at the metal detectors have to tell hundreds of people that the keys in their pocket could set off the metal detector, and so people should remove them before going through. They do this because hundreds of people don't think about this.
The parking people have to tell hundreds of people every day that they need to keep moving. Even though signs are clearly posted, people think that they are the exception to the rule that you cannot park arrivals. Of course, I think that I am an exception, too, but this is a conversation from the employees' point of view.
Can you imagine having to tell hundreds of people that keys are metallic all day, every day? I don't know how they do it.
I think this is related to why teachers sometimes get so bitter: they spend 30 years explaining the same thing year after year, and the students have a tough time learning it each year. The mind doesn't realize that these are new students - it just remembers that you have explained the concept 29 times before.
I hope that last paragraph doesn't seem more scientific than it actually is (i.e. "Not at all.").
I love the World Cup. I enjoy watching the games, I enjoy learning about the players, and I enjoy participating in something that a billion people are interesting in. Here is what I do not like about it, though: soccer players are whiny little punks. Every time they get kicked/hit/touched, they fall down into a heap like they just had a kidney ripped from their back. You just don't see this in other sports. A baseball player gets hit by a 98 mph fastball, and they grimace and skip down the first base line. A football player gets crunched between two 300 pound linemen, and he stays down for ten seconds before getting up. A soccer player gets bumped into from behind, and he writhes on the ground for a full minute before getting up and playing like nothing happened. Little, whiny punks.
The worst part? I think that I am the same way when I play sports. This frustrates me.
"There was nothing between Hans and me." "Apparently on more than one occasion."
I am in the midst of a pleasant little email exchange.
Yesterday was total family day, and I enjoyed it. I saw all three grandparents, two of the three uncles who live in near the Twin Cities, and the nuclear family. The only near-by family members I didn't see were an uncle and two cousins. The uncle and one of the cousins aren't all that (figuratively) close to me, although I see the other cousin quite a bit. Maybe I should say that I interact with the other cousin quite a bit, since I actually see her about as often as the other cousin.
The family ate at Galactic Pizza, which is vegan- and environmentally-friendly. Their pizza delivery people dress like superheros, and one delivery person recently helped fight crime. I love this story, and I would have loved to have been the thief for the brief, surreal moment when he realized: "I'm actually being chased by a superhero."
My dad stole that last idea from me last night without giving me credit. I don't think it is that original of an idea, but still.
Fact: The U.S. soccer team got hosed on the penalty kick at the end of the first half again Ghana.
Fact: It didn't matter, because the U.S. soccer team isn't very good.
If you take away all of the bad calls that cost the U.S. team, I still don't think that they advance. Even if they beat Italy and tied Ghana, I think that they still would have finished third in the group because of goal differential. Italy would have five points, the U.S. and Ghana would each have four points, and the Czech Republic would have had three points; it is doubtful that the U.S. would have defeated Italy by more than three goals.
I'm looking forward to watching Brazil. I have nothing else to add to this "paragraph."
"Once is an accident, twice is a trend, and three times is a...? Conspiracy theory?"
Congratulations to the Heat. I wanted Dallas to win, but I am happy that Dwyane Wade did well. He certainly shoots enough free throws, though.
I had a good time at the wedding in Green Bay. I saw a bunch of good Madison people, and met so new people. I had lunch in Madison with Tal, Katie, Duane, Carey, Andrew, and Rob the next day. We went to State Street Brats and watched some World Cup.
If you think you recently lost your hard rock radio station, you should try looking in Northern Wisconsin, 'cause - man - there are a lot of them up there. They also played a lot of Stone Temple Pilots and Boston. There were other musical peculiarities, but I don't remember them right now.
I have been having a great time with my parents and grandparents. It is especially nice to see them now that I am living far away.
Good thing that the CIA just gives daily briefings to the president to cover their asses.
Also, No one predicted the level of violence in Iraq and Bill O'Reilly wants us to run Iraqlike Saddam Hussein did. Now, I want to make fun of O'Reilly for this (Why did we remove Hussein if he was already running the country well?), but he goes on to say that he would only do this for a couple of months. Because of this, I am going to refrain, even though it was a stupid thing for him to say.
I'm also going to defend Mark Cuban for giving the press a hard time. "Is this your worst loss ever?" That seems like it is an awful question for a journalist to ask. What are they going to write? "When asked if this was his worst loss ever, Cuban said, 'Yes.'" I give athletes/coaches/owners a hard time for not saying anything of substance, and they deserve it. However, the press is partly to blame. How is Cuban supposed to answer that question? Could we give him an interesting question?
I played basketball for two hours today, which I thought would be a problem after yesterday's run. It wasn't, though, and now I think that I am invincible. Also, I went 5-0 in basketball games today.
I ran an easy 16 miles this morning. I say "easy" because I think that is the only way I can do it right now.
Even though I got up at 6:00 am, I got surprisingly little work done. I ran, I did some good talking and writing, but not much math. Where does the time go?
Skye and I are learning about physics together. In particular, we are learning about sound waves. I don't understand nearly as much as I should, and I think that I have a fundamental misconception about sound waves that I need to work out. She and I already worked out that we had a misconception about The Doppler Effect. Namely, we both thought that that Doppler Effect involved an infinite number of different frequencies (kind of like a crescendo and decrescendo, only with frequencies instead of loudness). In reality, it only involves three: the frequency of the sound from the reference frame of the "moving" object, the frequency from the reference frame of a "stationary" observer while the "moving" object approaches, and the frequency as the "moving" object moves away from the "stationary" observer. I think that this is right.
Skye's sister and brother-in-law were visiting this weekend, so we did the tourist thing. It is really cool to live in a town with so much history. It is also cool to live in a town where most of the town used to be water. I feel so...Dutch.
Skye's sister and brother-in-law are coming tonight, and I am excited to meet them. They are going to bring their unborn child, since the sister doesn't really have much choice. This might be the first week that I ever see two pregnant friends in the same week (the Veecees are the other pregnant ones).
I've been listening to a good amount of No Doubt recently, and I have found that I think "Sunday Morning" is a really good song. Please allow me to enumerate why:
It has a nice riff at the beginning of the song. It goes away, and then comes back periodically. All good things.
It has many different "melodies." It has the verses ("sappy, pathetic little me"), the chorus ("you came in with the breeze"), the second part of the chorus ("I thought I knew you"), the end ("And you want me badly") and the middle eight ("I know who I am, but who are you?").
It goes from choppy ("you came in with the breeze") to smooth ("I thought I knew you").
I know what you are thinking: being a mathematician ain't nothing but Beamers, bourbon, and babes. While all of this is true, there is at least one serious drawback: you can't stop thinking about things outside of math terms. If you give me two numbers, I will immediately start to compare them, perform some sort of operation on them, or determine if the numbers are significant (prime? perfect?). You wouldn't think that this would be a problem in everyday life (aside from that fact that it can be rather boring to talk to me at dinner parties), but it has caused me problems in the past. I just wish that I could turn it off sometimes. I think this has something to do with my love of basketball and baseball statistics as a kid, too. Curses.
Skye and I saw The Break-Up last night. It was okay, not bad. It wasn't as much of a comedy as I had expected. It is probably completely forgettable - I'll let you know in a week. Or maybe I won't let you know in a week; it depends on how forgettable the movie actually was.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the movie. I couldn't place it at the time, but I knewIvan Sergei from Once a Thief. This is weird because, you know, Once a Thief. It's also great to see Justin Long doing well. In addition to his small role in this movie, he has the Mac commericials with John Hodgman and a new movie coming out about an alternative college. It seems interesting from an educational point of view, although I doubt that the film will explore the possibility of unstructured learning much.
Also, I am learning that there probably will not be much room for semi-unstructured learning at my current job. I just had a meeting with my boss, and she didn't seem to think what I was doing would fly.
I took care of business today: I made four phone calls, ranging from mortgage companies to dentists. I also played two hours of basketball. It was fun, but an out-of-control elbow to the jaw put me in a bad mood.
Also infuriating: Bill O'Reilly (thanks to Tsjaz for this one). I gave O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt for a long time. I can appreciate that people have different political opinions than my own, and I truly believe that this is a good thing. Hence, I didn't fault O'Reilly. But when you tell a mistake (lie?) about WWII U.S. soldiers slaughtering Germans at Malmady, Belgium (it was the other way around) to justify Abu Ghraib, it begins to get a little bad. Just a little - we can all make mistakes. When you tell the same mistake/lie again a second time a year later to justify Haditha, then you are irresponsible. When your own viewer calls you out on it, and you shrug it off, then you are despicable. When you change the transcripts of the show to no longer include the mistake/lie (thereby acknowledging that you were wrong) but do NOT apologize to the memories of the slaughtered U.S. troops, then you are evil. Keith Olbermann was way too easy on you, Bill O'Reilly.
I talked to Trapper last night - always fun.
Oh, and I still enjoy going to the movies with Skye.
Skye's sister and brother-in-law are coming tonight, and I am excited to meet them. They are going to bring their unborn child, since the sister doesn't really have much choice. This might be the first week that I ever see two pregnant friends in the same week (the Veecees are the other pregnant ones).
I've been listening to a good amount of No Doubt recently, and I have found that I think "Sunday Morning" is a really good song. Please allow me to enumerate why:
It has a nice riff at the beginning of the song. It goes away, and then comes back periodically. All good things.
It has many different "melodies." It has the verses ("sappy, pathetic little me"), the chorus ("you came in with the breeze"), the second part of the chorus ("I thought I knew you"), the end ("And you want me badly") and the middle eight ("I know who I am, but who are you?").
It goes from choppy ("you came in with the breeze") to smooth ("I thought I knew you").
I know what you are thinking: being a mathematician ain't nothing but Beamers, bourbon, and babes. While all of this is true, there is at least one serious drawback: you can't stop thinking about things outside of math terms. If you give me two numbers, I will immediately start to compare them, perform some sort of operation on them, or determine if the numbers are significant (prime? perfect?). You wouldn't think that this would be a problem in everyday life (aside from that fact that it can be rather boring to talk to me at dinner parties), but it has caused me problems in the past. I just wish that I could turn it off sometimes. I think this has something to do with my love of basketball and baseball statistics as a kid, too. Curses.
Skye and I saw The Break-Up last night. It was okay, not bad. It wasn't as much of a comedy as I had expected. It is probably completely forgettable - I'll let you know in a week. Or maybe I won't let you know in a week; it depends on how forgettable the movie actually was.
There were a lot of familiar faces in the movie. I couldn't place it at the time, but I knewIvan Sergei from Once a Thief. This is weird because, you know, Once a Thief. It's also great to see Justin Long doing well. In addition to his small role in this movie, he has the Mac commericials with John Hodgman and a new movie coming out about an alternative college. It seems interesting from an educational point of view, although I doubt that the film will explore the possibility of unstructured learning much.
Also, I am learning that there probably will not be much room for semi-unstructured learning at my current job. I just had a meeting with my boss, and she didn't seem to think what I was doing would fly.
I took care of business today: I made four phone calls, ranging from mortgage companies to dentists. I also played two hours of basketball. It was fun, but an out-of-control elbow to the jaw put me in a bad mood.
Also infuriating: Bill O'Reilly (thanks to Tsjaz for this one). I gave O'Reilly the benefit of the doubt for a long time. I can appreciate that people have different political opinions than my own, and I truly believe that this is a good thing. Hence, I didn't fault O'Reilly. But when you tell a mistake (lie?) about WWII U.S. soldiers slaughtering Germans at Malmady, Belgium (it was the other way around) to justify Abu Ghraib, it begins to get a little bad. Just a little - we can all make mistakes. When you tell the same mistake/lie again a second time a year later to justify Haditha, then you are irresponsible. When your own viewer calls you out on it, and you shrug it off, then you are despicable. When you change the transcripts of the show to no longer include the mistake/lie (thereby acknowledging that you were wrong) but do NOT apologize to the memories of the slaughtered U.S. troops, then you are evil. Keith Olbermann was way too easy on you, Bill O'Reilly.
I talked to Trapper last night - always fun.
Oh, and I still enjoy going to the movies with Skye.
Skye did a little detective work for me, and found the link that the video I mentioned in the last post. Here it is - I'll let you decide among Quicktime, Windows Media, and Real Player.
"Michael realized that his father had even taken control of the banana stand. But he still had some unanswered questions, so he did a little detective work.
Nat was visiting all week, and he left this morning. I really liked Nat in graduate school, but didn't get to know him as well as I should have. This is a shame, since I started liking him even more after this visit.
This weekend was full of ups and downs. The downs were pretty down, but the ups were really, really up.
I wasn't thinking about this as I was typing the last paragraph, but another up is this: I think I have probably sold my condo in Madison. I officially got a new realtor on the first, and she had a decent offer on the place by yesterday the third. Considering that the condo had been on the market for 15 months, I think that this is fantastic. This is in part because Carey, my realtor is fantastic. She and her husband, whom I know from graduate school, ripped out some carpeting from my kitchen and put in some nicer linoleum. She did this completely on her own, and I thought that this was totally above and beyond the call of duty. Also, I think that my previous realtor was doing a very good job. I didn't know this until recently, when some of my Madison neighbors started telling me that he treated some of their friends poorly. Why don't people tell me this kind of stuff earlier? I'm the type of guy who would listen to that advice.
I'm really interested in some music videos. I met a guy last week who made a video for "Hold Me Now" by the Polyphonic Spree. They were holding a contest, and he came in second. Unfortunately, I couldn't find his video (it involves animated bears, the creator's name is Jeremy, and it is fantastic), but here is another entry:
I also came across the video for "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz. I absolutely love it, because there is so much stuff going on. Check it out:
If you like it, check out the sequel: El Mañana.
I wanted to learn more about it, so I did some internet searching. I found that Wikipedia has an entry for the videos. There is apparently a debate about whether Noodle (the guitarist, as seen on the floating islands in the video) is dead. There is evidence that she is, but I would like to remind people that if Michael Bolton did a video where he got bombed, people would assume that he was dead in real life. Likewise, just because a band - an animated band, granted - does a video, it doesn't mean that it is based on what really happened to the band.
"Windmill,Windmill for the land, turn forever hand in hand."
Someone is going to get a nasty phone call. They are doing some construction on the apartment above my storage unit, and I found my storage unit filled with rubble a month or two ago. Well, I checked my storage unit today, and I found that the plastic wastebasket that holds a bunch of my CDs to contain rubble AND four inches of dirty water. The water smells pretty strongly of sulphur. So I think that I just lost 50 or 100 of my CDs. I am NOT happy about that.
So I'll make a phone call, and I'll see what can be done.
I am calling for a moratorium on bad news. This week, I have learned:
My friends had to put their adorable cat to sleep.
A friend divorced her husband because of his infidelity.
My friend's father died suddenly.
I was right - it seems like breast milk is just modified sweat. I knew I wasn't making that up.
I basically worked for 12 hours yesterday. This is one of the weird things that many mathematicians have in common - they get semi-obsessed with solving problems. It comes and goes; in a week, I won't want to do anything related to math. But for now, I am going to take advantage of my willingness to work.
I ran today. I meant to run yesterday, but I was firmly planted on my couch with my symmetric and alternating groups. It would have been better to run yesterday, since there is a ten degree difference betwixt the two. I put in probably 11 miles, which is about four or five more than I was planning on. I just felt good when it came to the turnaround point, and so I kept going. By the time I got to the next point where I could turn around/cross the river, I was starting to feel it. My main goal for the rest of the run was to find shade, and I wasn't too successful. For the last two miles I was in "Just Keep Moving" mode. I didn't push myself at all, except to keep my feet moving.
I'm feeling really good now, though. This is because I immediately had some post-run water, Powerade, and salty french fries. I have found that I need salt the most after this exercise.
"Milk is actually a kind of anti-microbial snot mixed in with a lot of fat and sugar."
