I want one!

Awe how cute, just imagine taking it for walks in the park ... devouring stupid yapping dogs and hopefully no children. If you want to know all about this killer dragon check this out.

I'm definitely between steps 4 and 5

1 A boy begins his wondrous journey.
2 He perseveres.
3 Math cannot become any more difficult than this, can it?
4 Yes.
5 Yet he does not give up!
6 For a brief moment, there is a glimmer of comprehension.
7 Actual midair pedalling.
8 The plummet.

source:
“Falling off the Math Cliff” (Progression of student learning math.)
The New Yorker March 6, 2006 page 57

Bad Bathroom Art

So I realized the other day that the Dali painting we have on our bathroom wall might be too appropriate. It's soft monsters on an angelic plane, (it's only in our bathroom because the colors match) but I will let you wonder what the soft monster in the lower left corner reminds you of.

Enjoy!

Completely useless skills

Every year around this time I devote a large amount of my time to learning a completely useless skill. Some years the skill becomes very useful, such as last year I learned C/C++, only to have it haunt me almost every day afterwards. One year I learned some basic html and created some bad websites, don't believe me check this baby out or better yet remember when frames were in style. And still another year I learned all about philosophy which then lead me to get a degree in it and thus forget why I wanted to learn it to begin with.

But this year I am looking into nicer DHTML web design, for no other reason than my current website sucks and I want to make it prettier. Hopefully this won't get me more work to do but if you are interested in my designing as it is manifested, check out this.

A weekend out of town

So this weekend my wife (Superstar Extordinaire) and I took a break in the country. It is amazing how nice real people are, that is non PhD types. Not that I don't like people with PhD's but there is just something relaxing about simple people who know that they aren't the brightest people in the world. Well if anyone wants a break from the big city I would highly recommend this little bed and breakfast in Kewanee, Aunt Daisy's. The couple running the place are fabulous, and with their cheap rates you can go their for about the price of a movie and a couple of drinks in Chicago.

Blah well off to work I go. It's spring break, why am I working??? Oh yeah I hate life so I went to grad school. Silly me.

Seafood in the Midwest

I now have substantial proof that Midwesterners have no idea what good seafood is. Last night to celebrate the end of the quarter, my wife and I grabbed a recommendation off the reader, which has never let us down. The highest rated seafood place (non-sushi / pan-asian) was this little neighborhood place called Pier 5736. We get there and find it to be little more than a glorified bar that served fish.

I won't say much about the service, besides the fact that I am convinced our waiter was intoxicated. We start with some lobster medallions (yeah we spend too much when we go out to eat). The remoulade was wonderful, the lobster tough. Then we had an awesome salad. But the kick in the pants came with the main course: Cheryl shrimp, me rainbow trout. Let's say I've had better trout cooked on a carburetor, and Cheryl's shrimp could have been sold as really old silly putty.

So that's it from now on if I want fish here in Chicago, I either make it myself or go to a sushi bar or pan-asian place. You might try the Satay, it is wonderful, look it up on the reader.

DONE

I didn't think it would happen but our Architecture project is done. And I think it is a decent result. I feel almost like my group contributed to the greater knowledge of the world. Hehe coming in just under 50 pages, I certainly hope so. And to imagine the original instructions called for only a 15 page paper.

Of course the response I expect from my professor. Click here

Shaving

One would think that I wouldn't forget how to shave. But when it's been four years since a razor has touched your chin, it is a rude awakening.

And for those who have never seen me without a beard. Brace yourselves, my wife doesn't even recognize me.

A man I would like to meet

Okay so there are a lot of people in the world I would love to meet. Oddly enough none of them are scientists but that is okay, I would rather read their work. But today I ran across this article in the Times Online about Sayed Rahmatulla Hashemi, former Taliban spokesman now Yale undergraduate. The guy was the foreign minister to the Taliban at age 22. I don't care how backwards their government was that is impressive. He toured the world and defended his country and his faith tradition. I guess the most impressive part of the article is his reflection on 9/11 and how Osama bin Laden is worse for the Muslim world than the West.

Now he has come full circle and is in the "enemy" countries attending one of their elitist schools. It seems that he would have a great perspective on the world that I could not begin to gain here in my office at the UofC.

Military Recruiters at Colleges

So this story seems to be spreading all over the place about the Supreme Court allowing recruiters on college campuses. Even at our own UofC there were a number of protesters who apparently became belligerent and were arrested for disturbing the peace. Now people want to protest the arrests.


Coming from a family with strong military ties, this debate seems to be another rich versus poor in a number of ways. Especially here at the UofC where you average student is wealthy, white or asian, and incredible privileged. But take this image from the MTV covering of the story. College not Combat. Considering that a very large percentage of our troops are in the military solely to pay for their college tuition. Even more disheartening is the fact the most of these soldiers that are being attacked by students are not any part of the problem. They are just there to do their job. A job which the American people have upheld as being a worthy and noble job (while teaching is not held in such esteem, grrr). So while students and campuses are snubbing their nose at these recruits and our soldiers, they are missing the point of why they are there. Politics.

So where does this rich, privileged crowd have the authority to assail these military recruiters that have fulfilled a spot on the food chain that is revered by America to pay their bills. Don't get me wrong I know there are major flaws with the military, but I'm not going to go screaming in the face of a enlisted person who either does his job or gets in major trouble.

Andy's Life

I'm with Garfield: I hate Mondays.

Teen Reckless Driving

It is good to see that someone is reporting about the problem of teen driving. I knew six kids who were killed in car accidents in high school. Hopefully these statistics will shock parents into teaching their kids better and politicians to get tough on reckless driving (both for adults and teens, remember the teen is just mimicking the adult with less experience).

Here's to you Austin, Toby, Brad, Elise, Amanda, and Chris.

Tribune Special Report: Teens at the Wheel

Aha so you do read my blog

So very often I have engaged in activities where I did not receive so much feed back from my audience, radio show host, physics Olympics organizer, teacher, to name a few times. But now I know that more than three people (Patrick, Dave, and my wife) read my blog. Hehe I guess I know in a very real way when I get to discuss my opinions with my classmates over a beer.

Let me say one thing is for sure, there is a lot of safety sitting behind the blogger API as oppose to on the spot. Not that I don't think that I can defend myself on the spot, but I really like this idea of thinking more fully through my responses. And let me tell you, some of my responses today were pretty silly. I guess that is what you have to do when you aren't convincing someone of what you have to say.

But anywho, discussion is fun. Over beer is even better. But if you are reading my blog, let me know or better yet put it in the comment box. Of course, I really like the comment box because I can moderate there MUHAHAHA.

Pro life artwork

This is pretty nice. From http://squigglepage.blogspot.com/

Late night programming realization

You know you've had too much caffeine when your fingers move with a "latency".