Outside the Academy

I recently gave a talk for the mathematics graduate seminar at the University of Georgia, since I was invited to by my old UVA roomie @christopherdrup, who is now a postdoc down there. The title of my talk was the title of this post, and was about my experience switching out of academia.

Unfortunately, some poor planning (why would anybody care to listen to what I have to say?) and verbal diarrhea obscured anything like a point that could have been made. I should have written this post before-hand, to get my thoughts together. Hopefully writing it afterwards will still be useful for somebody.

My point, if I'd focused a little, would have been something along the lines of: If you decide to stay in academia, that's great, and I wish you all the best. If you decide to get out, that's great too, and "real jobs" can be pretty awesome (crazy-better than grad school). This talk may not apply to you now (I wouldn't have listened my first year or two of grad school), but maybe store it somewhere in the background, because things change (I'd have listened two years ago).

I threw some slides together. You're not likely to get much out of just looking at them, since mostly it's just some random pictures. In what follows, I try to recount what I said (or should have, without so much babbling (hopefully)), with some indication about slide transitions.

I began (first content slide, Math) (well, after a quick intro about how I originally wanted to be a math prof, and now have a non-academic job I love), talking about how, yes, I do actually like math. I had a great time in grad school reading about continued fractions, and in the little reading group a few of us formed for number theory. Even at a broad level, the topic of my thesis work (the more involved expression on the slide) was interesting. I told them I wouldn't bother talking about what it was, since it didn't matter, which I think caught some of them by surprise.

However, I never really cared a whole lot about serious math research. I knew being a professor might involve having to do some research, but I was optimistic it could be about math education, or something. I know I never particularly cared about cohomology, or spectra, or spectral sequences, things that my classes for the last few years talked about. (transition on the first slide, to the sketch of the frustrated guy). I failed to mention that it wasn't so much an issue about just being wholly abstract and useless. That had never really bothered me. But I think when it was not only abstract and useless, but also frustrating and not fun, that's when it bothered me.

But that's ok (next slide), because mostly I was in grad school because I wanted to teach at the college level. Getting a phd seems to be a requisite step along the way, so I'd struggle through (a friend, recently, told me this was a stupid reason to go to grad school. I'm not sure about his rationale, besides liking to tell people they're stupid). Teaching was always what got me through. I think I mentioned that they'd need a reason to get through, because grad school is gonna suck a lot sometimes.

Unfortunately, a few years in (transition to the rows of desk), I started not appreciating the teaching gig either. I've come to refer to it as "institutionalized education", and I don't care for it at all. I lost the feeling that school was about the joy of learning, and that, instead, it's all about accreditation. Really a shame, but that's how I see it.

So now it all sucks. I came in liking math, and wanting to teach, and I no longer had either of those. Not a fun place to be. However, grad school wasn't all bad, and I did get a few useful things out of it. (next slide, Running) First up, running. Not much to say here. Physical exercise is probably good for you, and I encourage it, and running just happens to not require anybody else (mostly), and very little in the way of equipment. (next slide, News) Next up, a news habit. In undergrad, I know I was reading slashdot a little (I know this because I remember checking it in the computer lab where I studied abroad), but don't think I read much other news. Sometime in grad school I picked up a multi-hundred feed Reader habit, and it's one I have no intention of trying to break any time soon. I gave them a quick heads up about rss, and was encouraged that a few folks appeared to nod when I asked if anybody followed news this way.

In addition to running and reading and generally avoiding what I was supposed to be doing, I picked up a few side jobs (next slide). Not on this slide are things like: I taught the racquetball gym class one semester, and I worked as a tutor for athletes. But my first odd-job was working with Webwork (online homework system) with Jeff Holt, at UVA. He must have sent out an email to math grads, asking for folks that were interested in tagging webwork problems, so they could be searched and organized. At some point, when Jeff was going to be away for a year, they decided I could be the assistant admin the year before he left, and then the actual admin in his stead. This sounds more impressive than it is, and wasn't particularly taxing. But hey, I figured it'd be useful, because webwork's a cool thing, and I'd use it if I was going to continue teaching. Through Jeff, who has some connections at a publishing company, I got to do some "independent contractor" (I think it was called) work associated with the Rogawski calculus textbook. It started as working with their webwork problem library, debugging problems mostly, but eventually also included editing a chapter (for the second edition), and writing wrong answers for questions, for use with clickers.

More recently (last summer), I worked as an intern in software development at Rosetta Stone. I applied because the then-fiancee of one of the math grads worked there, and she suggested I apply (and acted as an awesome proxy for sending my resume in). I had a great time. I don't remember how much thesis work got done last summer (this is going in to my final year (ended up as final semester) of grad school), but my guess is not a whole lot.

At the end of the summer, I applied with Rosetta Stone to stay on (or come back?), half-time throughout the fall semester while I was still in grad school, and then starting full-time in January when I was done (either with a degree or not, I was pretty fed up with research, and had been for a while - even up in to November I almost told my advisor I was quitting). Also, on the suggestion of @drmathochist, I applied at a little place in Charlottesville, CCRi. I almost cancelled on the interview, since I basically knew Rosetta Stone would work out, and I'd enjoy it, but went anyway, and enjoyed it.

After sort of a crazy week(end) when I was debating between offers, I decided to go with CCRi (next slide, Outside (CCRi logo, boring slide)). I mentioned that maybe it's not the most typical company, but I don't really know about many others. It's a great small place, and the owner is a professor at UVA, so I think it's maybe closer to the academic end of the spectrum than other places. There's a laid back atmosphere, but lots of fun things to work on, and it's full of great people. I should mention that this was also my impression at Rosetta Stone. So while my idea of programming jobs might come from, say, Office Space, The Matrix, or Dilbert, there are other great jobs out there where you don't have to wear a tie or sit in a cubicle.

One of the things it was suggested I might talk about was what my typical day looks like (next slide). My schedule is pretty flexible, so I can get in whenever, and leave whenever, as long as I'm around for my 10am daily meeting (stand in a circle and say what you were up to yesterday, what you're planning for the day - easy, and helps you keep up with the work of others), and long enough overall to get work done. Occasionally I've got a telecon I need to be on, and once a month I need to write a quick progress report. I don't know what a TPS report is, and Lumberg never shows up and asks me to work weekends.

In grad school, you may work on the same problem for weeks or months (years) and not make much noticeable progress most of the time. These days, I do something different every few days. Longer tasks might take (me) a week or two, but I can always see my progress. I get to play with things at all levels, from the math/stats in the background, R for some computations, Java as a big framework, a database as necessary, and Javascript toward the front. While I've maybe dabbled in most of these things, I came in as (and remain) no expert (hopefully I'm improving). But the point is I can learn, and I expect anybody that's bothered starting grad school can say the same thing.

While most of my days are spent programming (which is awesome), other things come in too, to mix it up a bit. The telecons I'm still sorta getting used to (they still stress me out). But I also got to work on a white paper (here's an awesome thing we could do if you gave us money), and that was pretty fun. Every few weeks we might (depending on which project you're on at the time) have a "sprint planning" meeting, where you set some goals for 2-3 weeks out.

I talked a little about the project I'm on (upper-right), where we do threat prediction: given incident reports, where does it seem crime is likely? I also mentioned that I've learned that singular value decomposition is actually useful (I asked if any of them knew this, and didn't notice any hands up), and talked a little about how it's used for text analysis. Why didn't I know this when I was taking linear algebra?

Oh, and we've got a ping-pong table, so days typically involve some of that :)

Ok, fine, some recommendations (final slide). Again, I don't know why anybody would take advice from me. If somebody did, though, this is it: (1) Read. Hook up an rss reader, add feeds for things you are interested in (math or otherwise), and enjoy. (2) Share. Start a blog, show off the things you're doing, and you've got yourself a ready-to-go resume. Even if you've got no formal experience in something, you've got a free way to point people to something so they can see what you can do. I'd hazard a guess that what you can actually do matters more than what grades you got in whatever random classes you took in school to fulfill graduation requirements (especially because I doubt anybody looks that closely at your individual class grades). The flip side of "Share" is "Do". You gotta do something to have something to share. I hated grad school because I never felt like I should be doing the side-projects I wanted to be doing, that instead I should be directing my efforts at my thesis.

(3) Keep Your Eyes Open. Unfortunately, this recommendation could also be "Network", which I always hated hearing at job talks. I'm not a networker. At conferences I'd go and sit through talks, eat the free food, and basically not talk to people. However, look at the jobs I've had and how I got them. Jeff Holt sent out an email asking for people to work on a project, and I did that. From him, I got work with the publishing company. Later on, I put my resume in at Rosetta Stone because a friend suggested it. The same holds for my current job. For not being any good at networking, as I view it from job talks, I have to say that my network has gotten me places (that I want to be!). But since I don't want to call it networking, I'll say Keep your eyes open. Watch for opportunities, and try it if one comes along that looks interesting. You can actually get through grad school and have other jobs and run and read a lot. Of course, if you realize early enough in grad school that you want out, you could skip the grad school bit and just do the fun jobs and the running and the reading...

That's about it for my talk. There were a few questions afterwards. I'm almost certainly mis-remembering them exactly, but I think the general ideas are there...

• How much programming would you say you need to have to get a job at a place like mine? I'm sure it depends on what other skills you bring to the table, but if you can learn stuff, that's probably the best skill. If you've got a class or two under your belt, and are otherwise smart etc., that's probably sufficient to be optimistic about sending in a resume. If you take up an interest in programming, outside of official classes, blog your learning efforts, and point people at that.
• Why did you go in to math if you clearly like programming? I've been getting this one since before I started grad school. Apparently others know me better than I do. They were all right, too. But, in my defense, I wanted to teach college classes, and I wanted to teach math, not computer science. I'm not sure why, but I never really had an interest in teaching computer science.
• There was a question about useful classes (or that I took to be about useful classes, anyway). I don't remember the last useful class I took. I know at least one early on had material I revisited several times, so was probably useful in that regard. None of the classes were (I think) honestly useful for my programming work. I didn't mention (because it didn't occur to me) that I did develop a better appreciation for category theory, and love the viewpoint it allows. And I did recently wonder if "persistent homology" might be useful at work, and certainly some early topology classes would be helpful there (maybe some late ones too?).
• There was another question I think I didn't answer well, about what else I learned in grad school that was useful, not just course material. I guess what "soft skills"? I said that people always say that having a phd shows you can focus on a hard problem for a long time (and that, in my case, this isn't true, because mostly I focused on not thinking about my thesis). I think the best skill is being able to learn, and I don't think that I got any better at that because of grad school, necessarily. Certainly having the opportunity to teach a course the first time or two focuses your ability to learn. But you get that in your first year or two, and could still get out after a masters and not miss much. Also, being in grad school may have allowed a schedule for me that let me explore other things, which I may not have gotten to do if I'd jumped into a 9-5.

Chris told me my talk was sort of depressing (that's what happens when I talk about grad school, welcome to my world), but that I had some good points (he didn't say what they were, and I didn't ask). He also tells me that another postdoc in the audience found my talk "refreshing" (since other talks don't talk about how grad school sucks). And apparently I said some things one of the grad students in attendance has been thinking. Going in, I figured such a connection with one person was a suitable goal. I hope whoever it was got something useful out of it, besides just knowing that others have felt the same way (if that's useful).

If I'd lost my idealism about teaching in my first year or two of grad school, I hope that I would have had the sense to bail with my masters. I don't think I've picked up anything since then that I couldn't have gotten outside of grad school. I mean, my two big take-aways were running and news reading.

If I'd known, a year ago, that I'd be at a job like the one I now have (or that I was considering applying for them, that they were even out there), I would have started learning more about stats and things, and (hopefully) blogging my efforts, or some other "share"-ing.

Thoughts on "Dehumanized"

You should go read "Dehumanized: When math and science rule the school." Even if you've read it before, and even if it was recently, go read it again. Perhaps a few times.

In this essay, Mark Slouka expresses disappointment that education is being "retooled... into an adjunct of business" at the expense of the arts and humanities.

This is certainly a fair thing to be disappointed about.

I've never really been "in to" the humanities. I don't remember ever much caring about my history classes, or social studies. I don't think I took many literature classes, and can't say I feel like I got much out of any that I did take. I blame nobody but myself, of course. While reading "Dehumanized" I became convinced that I have seriously missed out. It's sad that now, age 26, supposedly 1 year away from a Ph.D., I'm finally ready to go to school.

I do not agree with everything in the article, though. Throughout, Slouka seems to wish that civics were the highest goal of education. I'm not sure I see why this should be. Of course, I'm pretty sure I don't even know "what" this would be, so I don't have much basis for argument. But I think many of the goals Slouka advocates, with the apparent intention of improving individuals as citizens, are goals I do agree with.

Slouka asks, "What do we teach, and why?" Clearly a fantastic question. He even provides some answers: "whatever contributes to the development of autonomous human beings", "in order to expand the census of knowledgeable, reasoning, independent-minded individuals." I like those answers, even if Slouka seems to want these things for the purpose of "the political life of the nation." I guess I feel like I want these things for the individual, and those around the individual. Perhaps that's what politics is/are. I don't know, I probably wasn't paying attention that day.

The humanities, it is claimed, are there to talk about "what it means to be fully human," to teach "not what to do but how to be". The output is "the reasoned search for truth." But then Slouka says these things are all, "inescapably, political." Perhaps the reasons why all point out why I don't know what "political" means: "they complicate our vision", "grow uncertainty", "expand the reach of our understanding" (and thus "compassion" and "tolerance"). One goal seems to be "an individual formed through questioning". The de-toothing of humanities education is summarized:

Worried about indoctrination, we've short-circuited argument. Fearful of propoganda, we've taken away the only tools that could detect and counter it.

The arts and humanities are there to "upset people", prompt "unscripted, unapproved questions", and, according to Don Randel, "force us into 'a rigorous cross-examination of our myths about ourselves'". Slouka quotes the teacher Marcus Eure who wants students to have "depth of experience and a willingness to be wrong", and notes that "every aspect of life... hinges in some way on the ability to understand and empathize with others, to challenge one's belief, to strive for reason and clarity."

These all sound like awesome things.

What confuses me about the article is that the author doesn't seem to think math and science help with these goals. I just don't see that at all. Uncertainty? Understanding? Questioning? Cross-examination? Reason and clarity? How are those not in the realm of math and science? Sure, the topics that are questioned and reasoned about are different for mathandscience than for the humanities, as it pointed out by the article. But how can the questioning nature of mathandscience, the logic and reasoning, not be helpful in the humanities? Is it because math and science education, in parallel to education in the humanities, isn't what it really could and should be? Of course, having also just re-read "A Mathematician's Lament", I worry that this is quite likely the case. But that's probably the topic for another day.

Phones

Today I made a few changes to the way I intend to interact with phones, and I thought I'd see if any folks out there had any advice for me about these changes.

I switched to a pay-per-minute plan for my mobile phone today, and also signed up for Google Voice (thanks to an invite from a twitter follower), with a new Google number. My mobile plan is now 1 dollar every day I make or receive (actually answer) a call, plus 10 cents for each minute of those calls.

So here's what I'm planning on doing: I'll tell people my Google number. They'll call that, and it'll call my phone, and I'll not (in general) answer it, but I'll notice that somebody called because my phone will ring. Then I can wait for them to leave a voicemail, and check it online (assuming I'm near a computer (which I probably am)). If it's important (and the person isn't online where I can just chat with them) I can then call them back.

Perhaps this is selfish and a hastle for the people that call me. But there simply aren't that many people that call me, and most of them (Mom, e.g.) probably won't mind or even notice the slight hastle. And if I know somebody will be calling (a friend arriving somewhere, say), I don't have to let the call go to voicemail. And I can tell folks that if they'd really like to reach me, now and on the phone, they can just call twice or something.

I thought I'd see if anybody out there does, or has done, or has had a friend do, something similar. If you've got any comments of feedback about my new scheme for being a cheap-ass hermit, please leave one below. Don't bother calling me :)

That's basically the end of this post. But my original version of the post started with the story behind making these changes, and it's all written out, so I thought I'd include it anyway. If you don't care, then go find something else to do, I won't be offended (I won't even notice, but even if I did, I wouldn't be offended). If you're bored... here's the story:

I think I've never really been a fan of talking to people on the phone. Certainly not recently. I'd almost invariably rather talk to somebody via email or instant message. But I've got a phone, because apparently you've gotta have one. And, I'll concede, they have their uses.

When I started grad school, I got my own mobile phone (look at me all grown up), and an individual phone plan. I've been on the cheapest mobile phone plan since then (5+ years now). I have never gotten particularly close to using anything like my allotted minutes. My most recent bill claims I used 6 minutes total. Not exactly something I was happy paying 50 dollars a month for, but I was too lazy to look into many other options.

The other day I accidentally left my phone in my pants pocket when I put those pants through a cycle in the laundry machine. It was an old phone that I'd gotten for free for signing up for whatever plan anyway, so I can't say I was too upset when it came out of the laundry and wouldn't turn on. I was mostly amused, and glad it didn't do any damage to the laundry machine (water and electronics being what they are... I figured).

After letting it sit for a few days on the hope it might sort itself out, with no luck, I decided it was time for something new. What I probably most wanted to do was get a Droid. This would mean paying more for my phone service, but it'd be paying for something I'd almost certainly use. Not the voice service, so much, but certainly data. However, I listened to the voice of reason (for now :)) and decided instead to switch to a pay-per-minute plan with AT&T (my current provider, inertia being what it is). I went and got a new phone (the cheapest), and am now (after some slight hastle with the SIM card, and having lost all of my contacts) on a plan where I pay 1 dollar every day that I make or receive a call plus 10 cents per minute that those calls take. While I certainly can see that some months will be more expensive than others (due to travel or getting stuck on hold doing something stupid), I have a hard time believing any will be more than the 50 dollars a month I was paying. That's something like 6 minutes of calls every day, or a couple of hour long calls scattered through the month. I'm not sure there's anybody I want to spend an hour on the phone with.

None of that is particularly interesting or exciting, I suppose. It's new for me, so a little exciting, but I can't see why you'd care. What's more exciting is Google Voice. Thanks to an invite from a twitter follower, I now have a Google number. In fact, it's HAM-BLET (in an area code that isn't where I am), which is a little fun (ANIDIOT wasn't available). And I guess the idea is I have the number... indefinitely. And then I can add any of my usual phone numbers (the one I've had for a while now, e.g.) to my Voice account, and whenever somebody calls my Google number, I see the call on my normal phone. And if I decide to not answer, Google will record the voicemail for me and send me an email (or text message, but I turned that off) with a transcript, or I can even listen to it online. That's probably the most exciting thing I've seen in... rather a while. Pressing some buttons online and having my phone ring is pretty magical.

Still Right Here

This post was inspired by my lack of having posted anything else here in a while (2 months, to the day, apparently). Of course, if you've got nothing to say, which I don't, then not posting isn't a bad thing. Another inspiration for this post is that when I sat down to do "real work" (research, toward my Ph.D.) today, I found that I was on the last page of yet another notebook. Seems like a good time for reflection. I wish I could say that I felt like this last notebook had useful ideas. Or that I felt that way about any of the previous notebooks. I guess if it were true I might be out of here by now, or on my way out in the spring.

This post is fairly personal. The only thing you'll learn about, from reading it, is me. And I'm not a particularly interesting subject, I promise. Go find something else to do, there's plenty out there.

For some reason this academic year has been a huge source of confusion and frustration for me. I'm now in my 6th year of graduate school (for math, in case you forgot that part). For the past 5 years, I knew why I was here: I wanted to be a math professor. Maybe I still do, but I'm not so sure any more. My thesis advisor says he thinks I'd make a good prof at some small school, which was always the goal. And yet, I have a hard time convincing myself that this is still what I want. It's sort of an odd feeling to have your main plan in life for... a decade?... not really matter to you any more. Or, to maybe not matter.

I only have some vague idea(s) why I don't care as much about being a professor as I used to. I'll see what I can put into words, as much (more) for my benefit as yours (hopefully you stopped reading around the end of the second paragraph).

• Research sucks. Or I suck at research. Or... something like that. I've been reading math books for fun since high school (after I read all the books on sharks at the local library, and then decided I wasn't one for the water). I still do. And I love reading about math. But perhaps "doing math" is not something I care much for. I know, I know... math isn't a spectator sport, and... if you aren't reading with a pencil and paper and trying to guess what comes next, you're doing it wrong. But F that. I love reading math, the way I read math. If the way I read math means I'm not a "real mathematician", then maybe I shouldn't be here anyway, or shouldn't be teaching the next batch of math students.
  
• How am I supposed to be a professor, and tell my students how to learn math, if I don't do it myself? How can I tell my students to go home and work more problems (a habit I never had), and bang their heads against problems for a while (when, every time I sit down to do research I find something else to do as quickly as possible)?
• Sure, I can tell my students about math. I can tell them definitions and theorems and how to work problems, and maybe even tie it all together in some meaningful way. But lots of people have already done that, and their work exists in textbooks and, increasingly, online.
• Speaking of online, I feel like (and I know I'm not the only one) higher ed. (and probably other ed., and plenty more) is going to be going through a bit of an upheaval in the near future. I'm not sure I see how small, private, liberal arts colleges (like the one I went to, and always envisioned myself teaching at) are in a sustainable position currently. They are too expensive, and for what? I believe that many people are going to start recognizing that the diploma you get from such an institution isn't as valuable as, say, an impressive online resume, which is now something anybody can create with little effort (besides the "doing things that go on the resume" part). People can show everything they are capable of online, for everybody to see. What good is another diploma in relation to that? (I know that a diploma is still good... I'm not going to argue any of the things I say here)
  
• And also, while I'm on the subject of "online"... the experts are out there posting work online. Awesome teachers are posting full lesson plans, and all sorts of incredible resources. And my students could get to it as easily as I can. What extra value do I bring to the table? A convenient face to bounce ideas off of, to ask questions to (before thinking about the problem long enough alone)? Scheduled hours when I'll be around? I think there is a place for web collaboration tools in education, and I'm not sure how I complete with the sorts of individuals that my students have access to online.
• And a final thought: even going in to grad school, I was making a choice between grad school for math, or grad school for computer science. By the time senior year rolled around I was decided on math. I know at least one of my closest friends at the time was surprised. I sort of wish I had talked to my advisor and my CS professors a bit more about my decision, before making it. These days, I feel like I was probably wrong. I can spend all day online reading about computer/tech/programming stuff. I'll work on Project Euler problems, happily, until I solve them - in contrast to research, which I have a very hard time convincing myself to spend even an hour a day "doing". I don't know, maybe this is just a case of "the grass is always greener". Also, Project Euler problems, from what I've seen, aren't meant to be long, whereas math Ph.D. problems are sort of meant to take a little while. But what gets me excited are the projects I want to work on as a programmer, not as a mathematician.
  

Earlier this year I was at a party, and eventually the group I was sitting with decided to play a "tell me about yourself" sort of game. Mine was "I've been thinking about quitting grad school". Somebody asked me why I was still in it. "Inertia". They thought this was a good answer. To stay 5 years in grad school, and leave before getting a Ph.D. sounds like a pretty stupid idea, all around. But I was seriously considering it. A lease that runs until next summer, and no job prospects if I left, though, made it hard to leave. Around the same time as this party I had several talks with my advisor about what I wanted to do, and such. Eventually we decided I'd stick around into my 7th year and finish up, and then I could re-evaluate "be a professor" or "don't be a professor" at that point. That worked for a while. I'm basically back to wishing I'd just quit. I've also re-adopted my anti-social role, skipping most of the parties I've been invited to since. There are simply more interesting things to do. Which is the same problem I have with doing research.

So, anyway. I don't really know where I am. I don't really know where I am going. I'm apparently in not too much of a hurry to find out. I've killed another hour that I should have spent on research.

And, yes, the title of this post is a nod to Tool.

Acronym

A
Big
Cod
Descended
Energetically
From
George's
House
In
Jupiter.
Kevin
Left
My
Never
Open
Popsicle
Quarry
Running
Stupidly
Toward
Undiscovered
Volcanoes
Where
Xylophones
Yodel
Zanily

Ah, the senselessness of game nights.

I'm 1!

Yep, my first post was one year ago today (though technically, I suppose, my first actual post was a week later). Four short months later I got my first comment, and two more months after that I'd had a visitor from every continent except Antarctica. I've gotten 60 comments (though nearly half of them are from me, responding), and had 125 posts. A post every 3 days, and a comment once a week... I'll take it. Especially because this blog tends to ramble and be pointless, even when it pretends to have something to say. All the same, it's been fun.

I thought I'd go back through and pick out my favorite posts so far. But then I couldn't decide what to link back to, and felt bad linking to myself. Most of my favorites were math posts, so you can find them here, because they were tagged. Perhaps my most useful post, if you live in or near Charlottesville anyway, was my writeup about the Rivanna Trail. According to my feedjit widget, this is also the most popular post (at least, from the past n days, I think that's how it works), followed closely by GPS in Ubuntu (which I find kinda surprising, but who am I to judge?). The post I wish more people had seen was this one, about a decent travel mug. I'm still interested to hear about a good travel mug (lid, in particular), especially now that it's almost gift-giving season :).

So, anyway, Happy Birthday blog! I'm a mostly proud parent. Don't get too jealous of your younger sibling (even if it does math better than you). For those following along, feel free to follow me on twitter, or my reader shared items, if you aren't already. I'd love to reciprocate.

Happy Thanksgiving

Yeah, yeah. I know I'm a day early. That's just how I'm making my Thanksgiving break work out. Anyway, I did some cooking, and thought I'd share.

First up, spiced fruit:
It's a pretty easy recipe. Basically all you need is some canned fruit, some spices, and some butter. I used peaches, pears, pineapples, apricot halves, and black cherries. Empty the entire can (juice and all) of pineapples, and drained can of apricot halves and black cherries into a large oven-safe dish. Drain the juice from the peaches and pears into a separate dish, and put the fruit in the oven-safe dish. Use as much of the peach/pear juice as you'd like to fill up the main dish, and discard (or find some other way to use) the remaining juice. Next, add 1tsp cinnamon, and 1/2tsp nutmeg (my mom also uses 1tsp curry powder). Slice 1/2 stick of butter into pieces and set on top of the dish. Cook at 350 for 1 hour.

Next up, apple and cranberry chicken skillet dish:
This is basically the recipe here, with approx 5oz (I had a 10oz package, and used half) of dried cranberries instead of the onion.

Finally, pumpkin apple streusel cake:
with some vanilla ice cream:
following the recipe at epicurious.com.

I made some crescent rolls too, and will make some stuffing (with sausage!), and hot cider at some point. But these were the main dishes. OM NOM NOM.

Hope everybody has a nice Thanksgiving, and your cooking goes as well (better, actually - I gave myself a bit of a cut) as mine. Oh, and travelling, too - I'm happy I got to avoid that part.

Toenails

With a title like that, you know this is going to be an exciting post. It's been boring here lately. You're probably better off skipping this post entirely, but I figure posting once a week is about the lowest frequency I'd like.

Anyway, I've spent more time looking at my feet since taking up running. Even more so since the Charlottesville marathon in April. The day after that run I noticed that the toe next to my big toe was bruised, basically the entire area under the nail. It was about time for some new shoes anyway, so I went ahead and bought a pair. I've had blisters most of the time since. It doesn't help that I pick at them.

But it was just this past week sometime that I realized how pointless toenails are. I mean, fingernails are useful. Toenails? Not so much. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they were useful, somewhere along the evolutionary trail. But these days, they are just there. Stupid things. It made me wonder if there is some surgery you can get to remove the parts that are in charge of making nails. So one day I go to the doctor, get my toenails removed, and they basically turn off my body's "make toenails" function. From then on, toenail free. I think toes might look cooler without them anyway. Of course, I'd never actually do such a thing. I'm all talk. If you do it though, let me know how it goes.

I told you that you should have skipped reading this post. You'll never get this time back. If you stop following this feed, I'll understand.

Miss Me?

I doubt it, but I thought I'd update you a bit anyway.

Two Mondays ago (9th of June) I finished moving out of my apartment. The next day I drove to my mom's house in Lansing, Michigan. The next day I flew to Portland, Oregon, where I rented a car and drove down to Eugene, Oregon, to spend a week with my friend Rob from undergrad days. Luckily I know somebody awesome who works for Southwest Airlines, so I was able to fly free (thanks again Susan). I was surprised by the ample leg room on the flights, so that was nice. My stop-overs (once on the way out, once on the way back) in Chicago (Midway) were both bumpy, but we made it. On my way out, the girl that set next to me had never flown before, so she was none too happy with the rocky landing. It was entertaining (of course, I was nervous myself).

Rob's easily the best Dr. Mario player I've ever met. I learned while I was away that there's a Wii version which allows for world rankings. I'm sure he's got high hopes for that, and I hope he doesn't let it impact too heavily his graduate school career. It also means I'm even more excited about the wii. I also got to see some Portal played, and it was about as awesome as I'd expected. I'm still trying to find the best way for me to get it (Linux version?), or even just a knock-off.

Rob and I hung out around Eugene for a while, and I got to meet several of his colleagues in the math department. The University of Oregon campus is pretty, and Eugene seemed like a nice town. Rob holds it in higher esteem, as his own Shangri-La. We climbed both Buttes in Eugene, and I went on a run with one of his friends that involved some trails near Spencer's Butte (the larger of the two, on the south side of the city). On a running note, Eugene is 'Track Town USA' and host to this summer's Olympic Track and Field Trials. Last time I visited with Rob we watched 'Without Limits', about the runner Steve Prefontaine, which I recommend. This time we watched (among other things) Wildboyz seasons 3 and 4 - fantastic stuff. I also learned that the county directly north of Eugene is the 'Grass Seed Capitol of the World', and was annoyingly reminded that I've got some allergies.

After a few days in Eugene, we headed out for a road trip. We drove out to the coast, and then straight up the pacific coast highway. If you're headed out that way, you can avoid the Sea Lion Caves, but all the other stops are probably worth it (all the ones we stopped at were). We stayed the night in Astoria, in the upper-left corner or Oregon, and the next day drove pretty much straight across to Mt. St. Helens. Sadly it was still early in the season, and the trail I convinced Rob to do was closed. We did the Hummocks trail, which was ok, and stopped by Coldwater Lake after visiting the Johnston Ridge Observatory. After Mt. St. Helens we headed back to Eugene.

The next day we woke up and headed out to Crater Lake with Rob's friend Pisa (sp? Pysa?) from Thailand. It was a bit of a drive, but entirely worth it. We drove in via a counter-clockwise route from the upper-right corner, and out straight west. Both routes were beautiful. Of course, the lake itself was also stunning. Again we were a bit early in the season, so the Rim Road was mostly closed. We walked a few miles along it though, and got nice views of the lake. We also saw a black bear, a deer, and a fox, though no elk (I wanted to see one the whole week).

The next day (I'm up to Wednesday the 18th, if you are curious) I flew back to Detroit, where my friend Pete from high school, along with his fiancee Barbara, picked me up and drove me back to their place in Ann Arbor. Pete's pretty much been my idol since high school, and visiting with him is always great. I've only met Barbara twice, but she's very nice, and they seem happy together, so I'm happy for them. Thursday morning Pete took me for a run, and then we visited downtown Ann Arbor (Borders and the outdoor store Bivouac and another little book store whose name I have forgotten) for a little while before returning to his place to watch the Germany/Portugal Euro Cup quarterfinal game. I haven't watched any soccer since the World Cup two summers ago, so this was fun, and I'm now looking forward to catching the last few games. After the game he drove me to mom's place in Lansing and headed home after dinner.

Friday was a pretty uneventful day at home, watching some movies and relaxing. Saturday morning I helped mom a little with a yard sale. In the evening we went to the Lansing Lugnuts baseball game. That was fun, and the fireworks afterwards were nice. Sunday I woke up and headed straight 'home' to Charlottesville. Of course, I'm between apartments right now, and staying at a friends place, hence the quotes around home. If you're planning a similar drive, between Charlottesville and Michigan or so, I recommend this route over Google's default suggestion, because it's not much different length/time-wise, but is much cheaper with regards to tolls ($2.50 versus something up around $18, if I recall correctly). Plus the bit through western Virginia and West Virginia is pretty.

I wish I had some pictures to show you of Oregon. Sadly my battery is out, and in all the moving and traveling I seem to have misplaced my charger. So you might not get any pictures until after I move into my apartment in July. Sorry. You can probably find better ones online of all the places I was anyway.

So there you go, you're all caught up. Lucky you.

[Ok, I've got a question for you about this post. Were the wikipedia links worthwhile? Are there words I should have linked (even if not to wikipedia)? I always wonder how many things to link, since you can find the same pages quickly enough if you are interested.]

Ghosts Vocals

I was poking around through some old files on my computer, and ran across some lyrics I'd tried to transcribe a while back for Clint Mansell's "Ghosts (Vocal Version)" off the Requiem for a Dream: Remixed cd. Guess I'm not sure how accurate they are, but I thought I'd share (hope it's not some copyright violation or something stupid):

speaking, avoiding talking
haunted, the voice is calling
warning, its time to set this down
not seeing, not hearing, not believing
man not even caring
this should all come down

[chorus]
its dark and i'm afraid
this is the nightmare i have made
haunted by the ghosts of you
can't win a draw
only sunsets and sunrise
are you happy
or just keeping warm
i don't know
cause i have never felt like this before
can you tell, can you see
i don't believe in me
anymore

pull me from the wreckage
of a life grown more pathetic
even i can see the message
time to treat yourself more precious
shine a light into the darkness
put some life in to the deadness
where there used to be a head nest
now its just a f***ing mess

[chorus]

wrap your beauty round me
kill the fears that surround me
a temporary diversion
just an exit from this hurt
body fueled by pain and poison
mind is stopped its rhyme and reason
acceptance is a state of mind
except you changed your mind
now i'm gone inside
confusion's bled me dry
how could it be everything
now its not anything

Funny Ad

Here in the math department at UVA, many of the calculus classes use online homework systems. I have used WeBWorK for my classes, and recently some classes have used WebAssign (because it was part of the textbook deal, or something). Both do basically the same thing: let instructors create a batch of problems (drawn from a repository) to assign to students, which they then complete by entering the answers online. I'm a fan of the idea, because it gives the students lots of problems to do and earn points for, while keeping the amount of grading the instructor has to do to a lower level.

Anyway, to the ad. WebAssign sent out the following mailer to some of the graduate students here at UVA:
I think it is hilarious. I'm not sure which of the two following interpretations we're supposed to use:

1. If you get left at the alter, WebAssign is there for you.
2. If all of your friends are married except you, WebAssign is there for you.

Either way, I'm amused. Perhaps you have another interpretation?

Layout

So I've mentioned that I wanted to change to a three column layout here. For some reason I thought it was going to be difficult. Before trying to dive in and do it myself, and spending the next several hours cursing css (or, at least, my css abilities), I asked Google one more time. One of the first results was this page, which got me going with no trouble at all. So thanks guys.

Anyway, if you've got strong feelings for or against the current layout, let me know. I don't expect I'll hear from anybody.

World Record Layout

I updated the layout for this blog recently. Not much, really, I just added two new bits along the right side:

1. Download Day. The folks at Firefox are trying to set a world record 'for most software downloads in 24 hours'. They've got it set up so you can pledge to download on the day Firefox 3 comes out (which, interestingly enough, is not yet determined, just "sometime in June"), so I put a link there on the right. If you're reading this in a feed reader, you can just follow the link here.
2. Flickr Slideshow. To play around with new (for me anyway) things (or just avoid doing work), I signed up over at flickr (so now I'm on yahoo too, I guess), and posted a few photos. Those now show up in a slideshow along the right panel. There isn't much up there yet, but hopefully I'll remedy that... sometime.

I'd still like to spend some time trying to make a slightly more substantial change to the layout here. I've been thinking I want the 'blog archive' and 'labels' bits on the left (maybe 'about me' as well), as they are part of this blog, and leave the other bits (other random bits of my online life) on the right. None of the provided blogger templates are 3 panels though, and I haven't found one online. But I need css practice anyway, right?

Beach Week Recap

So it turns out (I'm not sure I'm surprised) that I have a little in common with whales on the beach - it's quite clearly not my natural environment.

I made it 3 days without checking my rss reader, and for the remainder of the time I didn't read items, just starred a bunch. So today, catching up, has been pretty taxing. Luckily it was a holiday, so a fairly slow news day. I'm back down to a reasonable 20ish starred items. I don't think I'll try for any more rss-free days any time soon.

Couple of other things from the beach.

• Running on the beach really isn't that exciting. The scenery never changes really (at least, the 5 mile stretch I was on), and it was windy (could have been a fluke, I don't know much about the beach) and sand blowing in your face isn't fun while running.
• It occurred to me at some point during the week that though I expected the expression 'give props' was probably short for something, I had no idea what. I asked my friends (5 of us there), and none of us knew. Our librarian friend looked it up on WordNet (which was cool, I'd just started hearing about WordNet). Turns out its 'proper respect'. Makes sense.
• We played some fun games while we were there (besides Dr. Mario, which did get brought out - what sort of nerd brings a Nintendo to the beach?). Settlers of Catan is a fun game - except I almost always get frustrated while playing. Eric had a game 'Pentago' that was also pretty cool. It's connect 5 on a 6x6 board, but after each turn you get to twist one corner of the board. We also played some Farkle.
  
• I started wondering about perhaps making a blog for the calc 2 class I'm teaching in the fall. Trying to decide what it would include, and if I feel like worrying about privacy concerns and all of that. I guess UVA has some system in place for class collaboration, perhaps I should start there.

So what did my (not so) unconnected week miss?

• I did, actually, get my Twine invite, which I was surprised by. Perhaps because I mentioned it here? I know that when I signed up for the invite, they asked for my webpage... are they monitoring to decide who gets an invite? Or was it just a coincidence? I haven't yet had a chance to play with it, but am looking forward to doing so from here (well, probably tomorrow) on out.
• The XOXO (next version of OLPC laptop) looks like it could be cool (see here and here). I'm going to wait a while before I get too excited about it - see what it actually turns out to be. The $75 price mark was shockingly low, given the current version is at $188. Time will tell I guess. Also they're doing G1G1 again later this year (with current version laptops). I certainly don't need another, and I really, really hope they have their distribution issues worked out. Oh yeah, and I took mine to the beach as an excuse to test it in direct sunlight (like we don't get that in cville), and it worked beautifully (as expected).
  
• I listened to a Semantic Web Gang podcast while I was away, with Barney Pell from Powerset. Got me excited about Powerset, and some of the people had pretty cool accents. So I downloaded a bunch more of the semantic web sorts of podcasts I've been avoiding. I still haven't gotten around to them.
• Read a pretty interesting article from Newsweek - 'The Rise of the Rest'. Worth a look. Made me wonder what I should be doing to better prepare for global interaction. Any suggestions?
• Found (thanks 'Discover' button in Google Reader) a cville blog I actually subscribed to, because it's about local tech. And it turns out I missed another interesting talk here at UVA. Sigh. Hopefully this is the last one I miss because I don't hear about it until after the fact.
  

Probably the highlight of the news I missed was the Roku Netflix set-top box (see here and here). I had basically forgotten about that news from January, but I'm kinda excited about it again. Sounds like its a really easy to use piece of hardware, in a reasonable price range... I'm debating about it. People have complained about the 'small' number of 'Watch Instantly' titles from Netflix, but I'm sure I could find enough to keep me occupied (like I need another distraction). If the Roku box was able to play videos from anywhere online (maybe embed a link in your Netflix queue?), I would have bought one already. Perhaps one of the other boxes that is set to come out later this year?