Things that might be decidedly odd…

Neglectful

I’ve been so neglectful about writing here, since I’ve been so busy. Oh well.

Today my parents dropped by for dinner. They’ve been up in Oregon for the past several days, looking at property and houses there, but were working their way back to southern California. We had pizza at Zachary’s, which was nice. It was great to see them and I hadn’t eaten there in ages.

For the moment, I’m all caught up on CS61B, just finishing tomorrow’s (today’s actually) lecture notes. However, the first exam is on the horizon and I need to start writing that.

More KALX Live

I dropped by KALX Live again tonight. Ah, it’s just like how all my Saturday nights used to be. Anyhow, Betsy, Ian and Aaron were there and it was nice seeing them all again. Betsy, Ian and I talked a lot about the Triangle area and they gave me a lot of restaurant recommendations, which I’ve already forgotten. Martina was there too, but we didn’t talk much, since she was pretty busy.

There was also this other dude there. He seemed like one of those burned-out people that seem to be everywhere in Berkeley. Honestly, I can’t say I remember once dealing with a burn-out in Saarbrxfccken, but perhaps that was just masked by the language. Not only was this guy being annoying by just being around, but he also had a dog with him. Now, I’m pretty sure there’s some rule about dogs not being allowed inside of university buildings except if they’re assisting somebody who’s blind. It was just annoying, but that’s KALX for you.

Busy

I’ve been so busy being back in full-time work, that I hardly have time to even write here these days. Still, Thursday marks the end of the lecture week for me. Tomorrow, I have some office hours and a meeting with my new reader. Unfortunately, I have a ton of things to write up this weekend including the handout for the first project (although I have the skeleton and solution done now), the automated tests for this week’s homework, and finally next week’s homework and lab. Whew. Plus, I got stuck with day kitchen clean on Saturday and Sunday, which is back-to-back workshift. It should be a nice break though from writing up stuff.

Day 2

Today seemed to be pretty relaxed compared to yesterday. Less running around. A bit more into the teaching groove. People even came to my office hours today, which was a pleasant surprise. The oddest thing is that I’ve really been on semi-vacation for the past month. It’s sorta strange to have several hours of obligations again, but it is refreshing. I feel like I’m being productive, which is almost always a good thing.

Interestingly enough, Eurographics sent me an email notifying me that my membership has now been activated, despite the fact that I know they haven’t gotten my proof of payment or student status. It makes me sorta annoyed. Just yesterday, I sent off all the paperwork to UNC to get signed and forwarded on to the EG rep in Germany. Oh well, hopefully the arrival of the modified paperwork (my student status is in limbo at the moment) won’t screw anything up.

I got confirmation of my master promisary note from CFNC today as well. However, I still haven’t heard anything about the consolidation on my undergrad loans. I need to call those people sometime, but they have annoying east coast hours of some sort. It was much easier living in Germany, because I could always call to the US late at night and still catch business hours. Now, I need to call everybody early in the day, which just doesn’t work for me. UNC has been doing some funky stuff with my financial aid. First, they were going to give me $1500 in tuition grant next year, then 4 days later decided to pull it. The problem is that I was promised 100% tuition remission and the current numbers don’t add up to that. I hope it’s just some administrative mix-up. I’d hate to have to give up my merit assistantship from the graduate school, because it’s not going to pay as well as the standard, non-competitive assistantship guaranteed to all CS students through the department.

First Day

Today was a long day. I got up early, to allow time to xerox off the first day handout. Things went pretty smoothly and I had plenty of time left over to read the newspaper even. The lecture seemed to go ok as well. After that, I spent a lot of time running various errands for the class as well as making a trip to the post office to mail some forms to Janet Jones at UNC. Then I went over to Tolman Hall to try and visit my former co-workers Turadg or Jim. In fact, I was able to talk to both, despite the fact that Jim was in the process of interviewing a postdoc candidate. After that, I checked up on the TA who has the last section of the day, to see how things were going for her.

Then I took a break and watched some TV. Little House on the Prairie is so predictable, but it is fun to watch just for the pick-it-apart factor. The episode I watched involved the Olsens trying to run this chain restaurant, while being screwed over by some British guy running the chain. Of course, Charles Ingalls (played by Michael Landon) comes to save the day as usual.

After that, I had to get back to work and prepared my lecture for tomorrow. Hmmm… I’m hungry. Time for a late dinner.

Disco Dancing

I hung out with Ricardo last night at KALX Live and he was talking about this Bollywood movie Disco Dancer (some screenshots here). It looks hilarious and I want to see it at some point.

I spent something like 3 hours today doing various cleaning and fix-it workshifts and I’m spent. However, I still need to make some finishing touches on the first day handout for my class tomorrow and finish up the first lecture as well. Whew. I’ll sleep well tonight hopefully.

New Windows

A guy from UC Glass came by this morning at around 8:45am to put new windows in my room. While I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have to get up so early, I now have windows that seal and lock well. Very nice. MUCH quiter. The old ones were kinda rustic, but they were essentially crap. Now, I won’t have to listen to quite as much banal conversation from all those people standing out front CZ.

I also went down to the CS office again today to check on the status hiring the rest of my staff. It looks like now we’ll only have to hire one more person, either a TA or Reader (depending if one of the readers wants to be promoted to TA or not). While there, I ran into Kurt Meinz, who’s teaching 61C this summer. We TA’d 61C together for Mike Clancy a long time ago and then later I worked as a TA for Kurt when he taught 61A in the Summer of 2002.

Back

I’m back in Berkeley after my bizarre reverse red-eye flight. Actually, both planes were late, but only by about 20 minutes. Monday afternoon I got around to meeting up with the new landlord and signing the lease (mission accomplished!). However, I had some time to kill in between checking out of my hotel at 11 and meeting with the guy at 12:30, so I ended up driving around. I got on Jones Ferry rode and just sorta kept going, driving through rural parts of Orange and Chatham counties.

After signing the lease, I decided I’d go into Chapel Hill, buy some postcards and drop by Sitterson. I parked out in a Park and Ride lot and took the CW into town. Monday wasn’t as hot as say Friday, but it was still at least about 80F and humid. I bought the postcards, sent one to my parents and one to Kerstin at MPI. I went over to Sitterson and although Janet Jones wasn’t there, I did talk to Sandry Neely about my travel situation with Eurographics. I need to send her an email and she says she’ll run it by the appropriate chairman, Prof. Quigg. So, we’ll see if I can get some travel funding for Eurographics still.

At this point, I decided I’d walk back to the Jones Ferry Park and Ride lot instead of taking the bus, thinking that I was in no hurry and I was curious about how the walk from campus out to Carrboro is. It was only like I said 80F or so, but it was humid. The interesting problem with this is that it wasn’t really any cooler in the shade than in the sun. You couldn’t just stand in the shade for a moment and cool down, because the air was hot. Additionally, the sweat wouldn’t really evaporate very well. I ducked into a Wendy’s (which seem to be everywhere out there) to grab a soda, which did help cool me down a little.

After a while, I was out of town and more out in the residential neighborhoods of Carrboro. Then a very innocent, small town thing happened while I was walking by this one house. There was this kid (I dunno, maybe 8-10) who was selling lemonade. He asked me if I wanted to buy a glass. Unfortunately, I just finished my soda and was still eating the ice, so I had to decline. But the concept of a kid running a lemonade stand is so quaint somehow. I can’t imagine that happening in Berkeley, at least not in any part of town a student can afford to live in.

Day 3

I didn’t manage to really do anything today. I slept in until about noon, but I rationalize that’s only 9am PDT. I did however hear back from the landlord guy and he said it should be no problem to meet up tomorrow, so that I can sign the lease. Definitely good news.

I also went to the SuperTarget in Durham to get some junk food and sorta browse around for a mouse. They didn’t really have any decent mice for a decent price. They had these mice made by GE (as in General Electric! weird, huh?) that were kinda big, but didn’t have a USB connection. I mean, who the hell makes mice that only work with a PS/2 connection anymore?!? Apparently, GE, that’s who. Everything else was expensive or really tiny.

After that I went for a drive around the neighborhood where my new place is. I decided to drive in from 40 East like we should be doing in August. Mapquest gave me the scenic route, which involved driving across Old NC 86. It was a nice drive through the countryside listening to some sort of country music on WUNC (the local NPR affiliate). I realize now that the place is really out on the edge of town, but it’s also only about 2 miles from Sitterson (the CS building) and is by a bunch of bus lines.

Mini-Bottles in South Carolina

An interesting article about how all liquor served in South Carolina has to come out of those miniatiure bottles. Interesting stuff.