Spring 2005
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28 May 2005
Quick little update... John and I are on our way to Philadelphia (because he leaves tomorrow early in the morning, so we're staying somewhere nearby overnight), but before leaving we were transfering pictures from my camera to each of our laptops... And I've realized that I have a LOT of pictures that I need to put in the website... I haven't had time to make any big updates because I was studying for the comps, but now I'll have time. So, coming soon: New Pictures (Spring Break, Spring Snow, APS Tampa, Spring, Six Flags Great Adventure), Research updates, Links (yes, I'll finally put all the links back on the website)...
27 May 2005
So, John and I appeared on Japanese TV. Weird, huh? Ok, let me explain. On Tuesday, John and I drove down to Maryland to find me an apartment for the five months I'm going to be working in Goddard as a coop student, starting in July. After that we drove up to New Jersey and stayed in a hotel in Trenton to then go to Six Flags Great Adventure the next day. When we drove down to Maryland on Tuesday, it was raining here in State College and the rain followed us all the way down there and all through the day. The rain then followed us all the way to New Jersey and into the next day. When we got to Six Flags on Wednesday morning, it was cold (seriously, like 50°F), and raining. Six Flags was almost empty. We parked so close to the entrance that the only spots closer were the handicapped spots. Luckily we were prepared for a cold and rainy day. I was wearing four layers and John was wearing three, and we had ponchos, so we didn't get too wet with the rain. It was very windy too, which made it feel even colder. This Six Flags has a ride called Kingda Ka, which just opened this season and is the world's tallest (456 feet) and fastest (128mph) rollercoaster, bigger and faster than the Dragster in Cedar Point. So, of course, I have to ride it. And, of course, the ride was not open that day because of the rain. So, we went to all the other rides. It was a fun day in spite of the cold, wind and rain. Since it was a weekday, and technically it's not summer yet, plus the cold and the rain, there were NO LINES to get on the rides. John said he'd never seen a Six Flags so empty before, and he grew up really close to the one in Atlanta. The longest wait we had was about 15 minutes, as opposed to the average wait of two hours on any normal day. We even got to ride some of the coasters twice in a row, without having to get out and back in line. That was awesome... By 5pm we had already riden every coaster, and played some games and won some stuffed animals. So we went back to Kingda Ka, because by then it had stopped raining. There was a security guard in the entrance telling people there that the ride was not going to be open for the public in the rest of the day because a Japanese TV show was filming the ride. I got really frustrated and started whining to John, saying "It's not faaaaaaiiir, I wanna ride that!", and John said "I know sweetie, we'll just have to come back some other day". Then, as we are leaving, a lady with a clipboard and a big walkie-talkie approaches us and asks if we want to ride Kingda Ka. Well, it just so happens that there is a Japanese TV show, their equivalent of Good Morning America, and they have a section about rollercoasters, and they're filming Kingda Ka. The show ends at 8am Japan time, which I guess is 7pm our time, and the reporter is going to ride it live on the show. Sooo, they want the train to be full of people to ride it with her. Hehehe, I guess the woman heard me whining too much, so she asked us if we want to to ride Kingda Ka on live Japanese TV. We're like "Hell yeah!", and all happy that we get to ride Kingda Ka after all. She tells us to be back there at 6pm, so we went to the car to drop off our stuffed animals, and then came back to Kingda Ka. At 6pm the lady came back and started calling names from the list, so we went up there. The producer started telling us where to stand and what things will happen and when, and then the reporter shows up. Then it's 6:30pm, and we're supposed to go on the ride at 6:45pm... And then... *sigh* It started to rain. RAIN! People can't ride Kingda Ka in the rain because water droplets hitting your face at 128mph apparently hurt like hell. Everyone was sad, the TV people were freaking out, and the rain just kept getting worse. Then the reporter went live and reported that it's raining and so we can't ride Kingda Ka. The reporter was standing right in front of us, and John and I were in the first row, so we appeared on Japanese TV. But we didn't get to ride Kingda Ka. BUUUUUT, since we had gotten our hopes up only to be let down by the rain, the people in charge of the ride gave all of us "Exit Passes", which means that the next time we're in that Six Flags, we get to go to the front of the line for that ride, no waiting six hours in line. Yay to that. And then we drove back to State College, and the next day was all sunny and upper 70s°F. Oh well... At least we'll get to ride Kingda Ka sometime this summer, and we don't have to wait in line :-)
26 May 2005
Happy Birthday, Robert!
23 May 2005
Happy Birthday, Bossi!
19 May 2005
I PASSED!!! I PASSED!!! I PASSED!!! AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!! *happy dance* ... Holy crap, that test was hard. They pretty much drained my brain until the last drop of knowledge came out. There were long pauses and awkward silences, as well as incorrect answers that later I realized were wrong but fixed just in time. So, all in all, my committee decided that I did well enough, and they said I passed the candidacy exam. I guess this makes me a "Doctoral Candidate" now, hehe... And now it's time for me to deconvolve my brain and relax... Yay, I passed!!! Whoo-hoo!!!!! :-) :-) :-)
12 May 2005
Today is Thursday. One week from now, next Thursday, is The Big Day. The HUGE Day. The most terrifying day of my life since I took the Physics GRE two and a half years ago (has it really been that long? Gah, I'm getting old)... Next Thursday is the day of my Oral Candidacy Exam (or "Comprehensive", whatever, not exactly sure of the name since the whole system is starting to change and we're the first crop of students to take this version). I've been studying a lot. And apparently in a non-ergonomic position, because my lower back hurts like hell. I don't feel particularly ready for it, though. I know many things, and I know them well. But there are other things that I sorta-kinda know, and still some other things that apparently exist but I've never heard of them. And that worries me. What if the committee decides to ask me all about the stuff I don't know, instead of the things that I actually do know? That's a very scary thought... Today we had a "grilling session" with the older grads, the ones that have already gone through the torture of this oral exam. They asked us (the five second-years: Judy, Brendan, Steve, Cristian, and me) all sorts of questions. It is very interesting that while others were on the board being bombarded, I either knew the answers to their questions or the way to figure them out, yet when it was *my* turn on the board, I totally blanked out and could not remember ridiculously easy things like the conversion between centimeters and kilometers. It's almost like my brain was a tape and the board was a big magnet, and the closer I stood to it, the more stuff got erased from my head. All of us struggled a bit through the questions at one time or another, though, so we're all certain that we need to study more. This session with the older grads was certainly useful. They asked really good questions. We'll meet again during the weekend, and probably ask the older grads to meet with us again next week, maybe on Monday. Not sure though. Maybe... So yeah, I'm studying. Gah, there's soooo much material to go through! I divided the material into a few major categories: Units, constants and orders of magnitude; Celestial mechanics and coordinate systems; Magnitudes; Statistics and other math; Radiation proceses; Special relativity; General relativity; Instrumentation; Atomic physics; Stellar atmospheres; Stellar structure; Star and planet formation; Stellar evolution; Stellar classification; The Sun and the solar system; The Milky Way; Galaxies; Extragalactic astronomy; AGNs et al; GRBs; Cosmology; Classical and quantum mechanics, and other general physics. Wow, that's a LOT. And those are just the broad topics... Ya know, I should stop writing this and keep studying... Ok, bye-bye!
4 May 2005
Yes people, I'm still alive. I've sorta been in hiding for the last, oh I dunno, five days perhaps, so people might be wondering what's going on. Well, John was here all last week, which was great because I had a lot of work and a lot of stress and he helped me keep my sanity. He left Sunday morning. The alarm didn't go off, he had to drive to Philly in less than three hours, it was very stressful; you can read all about it in his blog. I spent Sunday and Monday doing a little bit of studying for the comprehensive exam and also a little bit of playing online riddles (NotPron, BadPron, and Mazito,). Man, these things are hard. They're riddles in which you have to figure out the URL of the next level, or obtain a username and password to move on to the next level. They're hard. I would not recommend them to anyone that has to be studying or doing something important because they are addictive. There's many other such games online, but they get all dark and sinister and bloody, and that's a little bit scary for my tastes, so I just stuck with these. I got to level 10 of NotPron (it has a hundred and twenty-something levels right now), and in BadPron I got to the last level they had (and I just noticed they added two more levels). Mazito I figured out because I found a gaming forum where people were discussing the game, so it could be said that I cheated a lil bit :-[ hehehe... Yesterday I bought three Mother's Day cards (mom, grandma, godmother), which I still have yet to send. Last night while reading a little BOB (an astro textbook), I started feeling like crap. Everything hurt. It was awful, I have no clue why that happened. I went to bed early and I could barely sleep all night. Today I woke up with a horrible migraine that made me feel like my brain was kinda loose inside my head and it was able to move around when I moved my head, which was very unpleasant and (needless to say), painful. By now I'm just woozy from the medication and still a little bit achy, but not as bad as last night. I'm waiting for the wooziness to go away so that I can go send the Mother's Day cards, get some food, and keep studying. And well, I wanted to let people know that the updates will be few and far between from now until May 19th, because, well, I have to intensify my studying... And now I'm gonna lay down for a while, so buh-bye...
29 April 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Mamá Sofa!
26 April 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Wilmaris!
24 April 2005
Hello Internet! How've you been? Me? Well, lots of work, that's why you haven't seen me around as much as usual. As you know, I couldn't go online when I was in Tampa, and then I came back to State College and had lots of work. On Wednesday I started getting a migraine during Robin's class (Stellar Structure, circa 2pm), which lasted all thru the afternoon and night. That was not fun. Then Thursday I had to work on my part of the presentation me and Nikola had to do Friday for Alex's class (Observational). And now I'm doing Robin's homework on white dwarf ages which is due Monday (tomorrow) and Peter's paper on gravitational waves from GRBs (due Tuesday), and later I'll have to start the homework for Param's class (Cosmology, due Wednesday). I have one final, for Robin's class, which is on Friday, so I'll have to study for that too. Then... get this... this is awesome... Next Friday, April 29, 2005, is my last day of classes, ever!!! True, I still have a 1-credit seminar requirement that I have to take, and I still have to teach Astro 11 sometime before graduating, but this coming Friday I am done with taking classes, exams, homeworks, etc, FOREVER!!! Whooooo-hooooo!!! Nothing but research from now on, all riiight. But lots of work between now and Friday. And after Friday it's final cramming time for the oral General Knowledge comprehensive exam (or candidacy, whatever it's called)... *DEEP BREATH* ... Ok, calming down... Yes, my oral exam is on May 19th at 9:30am. That's the big moment... The peak of my astronomy knowledge should be right then... Anyway, I'll stop talking about depressing and stressful things... I have some pictures from Spring Break and from the APS meeting that I have to put up, and also some pictures of the last bits of snow and the first signs of spring. But I won't have time to do this just yet. Maybe I'll do it after classes end, while taking a break from the comps studying. Or maybe I'll wait until after comps, dunno yet. I also have to finish those link pages that have been incomplete for... well, since I re-designed the website (and that was a loooong time ago). And I also have to add some things to the Grad School Projects page and update my CV... Lots of things to update in the website... I'll come around to doing that sometime soon, I promise... Among the nicer things I have to think about, I'll tell you that John is coming over tonight and staying here for a week. It will be nice to have him here with me during this very stressful week. He's also coming over for comps, to keep me company, offer moral support, and take me out to celebrate when/if I pass the exam. And then a few weeks after that we're going to Puerto Rico together for two weeks. It will be the first time I spend my birthday in Puerto Rico in 5 years. Wow. Last time I had a birthday in PR was when I turned 19. Wow... I'm old... Ok, enough blabbing. I'm going back to doing homework. Catch ya later, Internet!
20 April 2005
Happy Birthday, Matt!
19 April 2005: 10pm
So I'm back in State College, three hours later than the time I should have arrived. But first: new pope! Joseph Ratzinger from Germany was chosen as the new pope and he decided on the name Benedict XVI. I guess deep down I was really hoping for a Latino pope or an African pope, but yeah that woulda been too radical a change from the millenia of European popes. But at least he's the second non-Italian pope in a row, which gives hope for more diverse popes in the future. I was also hoping that the new pope would be more liberal than JP2, but this guy is one of the most conservatives... Oh well... But enough about that. The APS meeting was fun, especially because my cutie John was there with me. My poster session was on Saturday, and I discovered that APS meetings are radically different from AAS meetings. In AAS people mostly do posters and rarely do talks, hence I applied for the poster session. Turns out, in APS people do talks, not posters. The only people that do posters are undergrads, people who send their abstracts after the deadline, and crackpots that think they have developed new theories that prove that Einstein was wrong. Oh, and astronomers who are used to the poster thing, like me, hehe. I actually got some good questions from people that saw my poster, questions that I hadn't thought about and could affect my results at a later stage of the project. I also got comments from a guy that said that gravity is transmitted by two particles, one positive and one negative, and that attractive gravity arises from the attraction of the opposite gravity particles and dark energy is nothing but repulsive gravity between equal gravity particles. I think this guy had his fundamental forces confused :-P Not that I have anything against new theories, but come on, things that go flat against the establishment sometimes are just plain weird and almost entirely unfeasible... Anyhoo, the talks John and I went to were very interesting, and the ones I went to by myself on Monday after John left were interesting too. We had a lot of fun outside the talks too, going out to dinner and walking around and hanging out and such. Today I flew from Tampa to Philly, and everything was fine until I got to Philly and realized that the flight to State College was delayed an hour. I went to Sbarro and grabbed some dinner, and when I came back, the flight was delayed another hour and the gate had changed. At 8:10pm they told us to go to another gate, where we waited for another 20 minutes and finally we were allowed on the plane (which was a crappy Dash-8 instead of a jet like they promised). Then the plane was 12th in line for take-off, so it just sat there until 9pm, when it finally took off. I got to State College at 10pm instead of 7-something like I should have in the first place. Argh. But now I'm finally home, and I finally have internet again (it cost $10 per day in the hotel, and I wasn't gonna pay $10 more dollars, the hotel was pretty expensive without adding internet to the bill). And I'm really tired from those extra three hours in the Philadelphia airport, so now I'm going beddie-bye-bye...
15 April 2005
Well... Hell week is over. I managed to do the cosmology homework in about eight hours (started around 9pm, finished at 5am). I took a four hour nap and got up at 9am. I grabbed the things I was going to pack and then I went to Davey. I dropped of the homework for Brendan to turn in for me (thank you, Brendan) and then I picked up my poster from Kinko's. The background of the poster was supposed to be light blue but it came out looking more lilac than blue. Oh well, the poster looks good enough... Speaking of Kinko's, the one in State College is a "FedEx Kinko's" (I don't know if all of them are like that)... Have any of you noticed that there is a hidden arrow in the FedEx logo? It's between the E and the x. Once you see it for the first time it's impossible to not notice it again... Anyhoo, by now it's 2pm and I'm all set to leave. As soon as I finish this update, I'm driving to the airport. Hopefully there won't be any delays or missing luggage or anything. I think I've suffered enough for one week... Oh, and did I mention that my cutie John is also going to the APS meeting? *giggle* Yay!!! Four days with my papito in a physics conference. Could life get any better than that? :-P
14 April 2005: 8:30pm
Well this day just keeps getting worse and worse... Murphy's law decided to play a part in every single detail of my day. If you read the previous update, you know that I woke up with a migraine. Well, this made me loose half a day. I went to Davey at 5pm... John turned my PowerPoint poster into a PDF using one of the Windows machines in IPAM (if he converted it using his Mac, the fonts got all screwie). Then I needed to tile the PDF to print. This I could not do in my laptop. On my way out, Pete told me that Adobe Illustrator could do it. I thought *whoo-hoo* and went to Davey. Yes, Illustrator CS can do it. However, I cannot print from my laptop to the color printer because the Windows laptops are on a different network. So I went to 445, where the color printer is, and looked in the Windows machine there. It had an older version of Illustrator. This older version does not make tiles automatically, but rather you have to manually move the print area around. I did this and printed around 20 tiles. After this it was already 6pm and I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I went to V&S and got some food. After eating, I cut the margins of the papers and laid them out on the floor. Then I discovered that I hadn't moved the print area well enough and I had big gaps on my print-out. Argh. I called Kinkos. If I bring the file by 8pm they can have it printed by noon tomorrow. It's gonna cost me an arm and a leg, but I've already reached the point of desperation... I got home at 8:15pm and started doing laundry. I still haven't done the cosmology homework. I'm going to start now. Hopefully I'll get at least one hour of sleep tonight. Tomorrow I have to get up early and pack, then go to class, then go to Kinko's at noon and pick up my poster, then drive to the airport. Damn you, Murphy's Law!!!
14 April 2005
Migraines really happen when they are most inconvenient... This week has been hell with work. I already did two presentations (a 20 minute one and the other was one hour long), and last night I finished preparing my poster for the APS meeting. However, I am too late to take it to print to the place on campus where they print posters because I would have to take it there a day in advanced (i.e., wednesday, before 5pm, when I still hadn't finished). I also have to do my cosmology homework which is due tomorrow and I have to finish it today to leave it in the office so that Brendan can turn it in for me because tomorrow I leave for Tampa for the APS meeting... Well, after finishing the poster I decided to just print it in 15 sheets of paper and assemble them at the conference. But, it just so happens that PowerPoint doesn't print tiles... John has a program that tiles PDF files, so I just have to turn my PowerPoint into a PDF... Problem is, I don't have the necessary software in my laptop. So I have to do it in Davey on Thursday (i.e., today). I also have to show Pablo the poster before printing it, in case he has any suggestions. And did I mention I have to do the cosmology homework too? And no, I didn't wait until the last possible moment to do the cosmology homework: I had to do other things first, including the two presentations and the ever-so-important APS poster, so there... Well, I woke up today with a HORRIBLE migraine, and I couldn't even walk downstairs to get some water to have with the migraine medicine. Fortunately, my migraine medicine is Maxalt, which dissolves in your mouth... Unfortunately, it tastes like hell once it dissolves if you don't dilute it with water... So now it's 2pm. I don't have a migraine anymore but I'm totally woozy from the medication (hence any incoherent thoughts that might have made it into this update). I am frustrated because I *really* didn't need another migraine, much less one TODAY when I have to do so much work. And I can't drive to Davey now because I'm woozy and that's just asking for an accident. I have to wait until the wooziness goes away, and that could take anywhere from a half hour to half a day. And I still need to make my poster into a PDF, show it to Pablo, send it to John so that he can tile it and send it back to me as 15 letter-sized tiles, then I have to print the poster and make sure it comes out right, AND do the cosmology homework... Not to mention that I also have to do laundry and pack... Oh yeah, sleep and eat and go to the bathroom and other daily time-consumers that are often taken for granted until you actually don't have time to do them... Sorry if I'm rambling but I'm trying to stop the wooziness and I needed to vent... Argh, I'll be so happy once this week is over... Or maybe not, since after that there's only two weeks left of classes and I have to do two homeworks, take a final, write a 20-something page paper, and do some research before the final cramming time for the comprehensive exam, which by the way, mine is on May 19th at 9:30am.... AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! *deep breath* ... *count to 20 gagillion* ... Ok, I've calmed down... And I'll stop rambling now...
7 April 2005
While looking around online for more migraine stuff (I'm sick and tired of getting so many migraines), I found this online petition to recognize migraines as a disabling disease. Needless to say, I signed it. John signed it too, as he has witnessed first-hand how migraines totally knock me out... I know, this sounds like a Public Service Announcement, but people, migraines are annoying, and the medical community should do everything in their power to develop treatments and preventive medications to help us go on with our lives when migraines attack.
6 April 2005
Well, I have quite a few announcements today. First off, Happy One-Year Birthday, Chandler Feynman!!! For those that don't know, Chandler Feynman is my car. It was one year ago today that I bought it, hehehe... Secondly, the high temperature in State College today is 81°F. Yes, you read that correctly, eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Oh my god. Wow, so awesomely warm for State College in early April. Holy wow, I'm like totally impressed... And finally, my last announcement for today is that I haven't been able to enjoy the super warm and sunny day because I woke up with yet another migraine and I've been in my room all day so far (almost 3pm right now). In the past two or three weeks I've gotten way too many migraines. Let's see... Today is wednesday. Before today I got one on Friday, and before that I got one Tuesday night, and before that one that started Friday night and lasted all day Saturday, and before that on Tuesday, and before that on Saturday, and before that on Wednesday... or something like that... Migraines are no fun. I read some articles about migraines on WebMD Health the other day, but they pretty much said things that I already know... There was also a Q&A section and it seems like I'm not the only person out there that gets the ridiculously frequent migraines, which in a way is a bit comforting because at least I know I'm not the only one going through this. That means that someone will come up with a way to get rid of them, because many people suffer from them. I just wish I could get rid of the migraines in a fast, easy way... I hate loosing a day every time I get one...
5 April 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Miriam! In other news, I've got a ton of work for next week, and I'm kinda freaking out because I don't know if I'll have enough time to do everything. Oh well, that's gradschool...
2 April 2005
Rest in peace, Karol Józef Wojtyła, Pope John Paul II (1920-2005). He was a great man.
27 March 2005
Hee hee, hee hee. The "Easter Bunny" left five eggs for each of me and my roommates to find somewhere in the living room and kitchen. Hee hee hee, fun!
26 March 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Yessenia!
25 March 2005
Happy Birthday, June! Also, I've added paths at the top of the main section of each page, thus facilitating navigation around the website even more. And, now I have a custom Error 404 page, so yay!
24 March 2005
Oh wow, I got hate mail! Some random person sent me an email in Spanish in which they insult me (yes, this person actually called me a bad name... and it was misspelled), complaining that I write about every little insignificant thing I do daily on my webpage. Well then, hmmm... What a difficult situation... Someone found a website whose content they don't want to read! Why, this has *never* happened before in the entire history of the internet! (sarcasm, in case I wasn't too clear with that). Whoever you are, if you feel so offended by the fact that I write whatever I want on my webpage, then please, just don't read it and go surf some other website. Oh, and before I forget, someone from Guayanilla is called "Guayanillense", not "Guayanisense", ok Einstein?
23 March 2005: 7:30pm
If I didn't hate snow before, I officially hate snow now. It is supposed to be spring. Winter is supposed to be over. It's not supposed to snow anymore! And yet, it snowed today. A lot. But this is not the reason why I hate snow... After leaving Davey I went grocery shopping and then I went home. I got home, parked my car, got my computer bag and the grocery bags and waddled to my apartment. I got in and I cleaned my shoes in the rug. I *thought* I had dried my shoes enough... but apparently I was wrong. I walked to the kitchen. The carpet ends just before the kitchen. There I am, entering the carpetless kitchen with a computer bag over one shoulder and a grocery bag in each hand. Then it happend. I slipped and fell. I fell! Gravity got the best of me. The computer bag slipped off my shoulder, tipping me to one side. I lost my balance and fell on my knees. Since I was holding two grocery bags and the computer bag had slipped to my elbow, I started falling forwards after hitting the floor with my knees. I tried to let go of the grocery bags as quikly as possible to put my hands down and stop the fall, but I could not react quickly enough. I fell on my mouth. I ended up kissing the floor. And hard. I bleeded for a few minutes while I shouted various expletives in Spanish. Now my lower lip is swollen and it hurts like hell. My top front teeth kinda hurt too. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes, but the swelling has gone up. Now I'm gonna have Angelina Jolie lips for a few days, damn it. Ow crap, it hurts... I hate snow.
23 March 2005
Some little updates in the Personal Page: extended the rant about my "Two Last Names", added a couple of details to "My Life in 200 Words or Less", and modified a little bit the "Likes and Dislikes" page.
22 March 2005
I hate migraines :'( waaaahhhh... Why am I getting them so frequently now??? Stupid migraines...
21 March 2005
Well, I was supposed to be in campus by 10:30am for the LISA Reading Group, in which they were going to discuss a paper related to my research... Well, just so happens that I forgot to set my alarm last night and woke up at 10:15am, thus making it impossible for me to get to campus on time. I called Judy and asked her to turn in my Observational homework for me (it was due just before class), because I most certainly was going to be late for class. So I showered and got ready as fast as I could, packed my laptop and necessary take-alongs, and headed out. I got in my car and left. It's 11:15am already, which is when class begins... Then, of course, all 11 traffic lights decided to be red for me, making me get to the parking lot around 11:30am. While looking for a spot, a bus came and went. Darn. I parked and headed to the bus stop. While I'm still very far away, I see a bus arriving. I start running like crazy, which was totally not easy because I was wearing a heavy coat (it was cold, 39°F), and had a 7-pound laptop (or maybe even heavier, I dunno) on my back. I ran and I ran and I ran, and I saw the bus doors begin to close. My heart sank as I saw that, but I kept running. The driver must have seen my running efforts, because he actually waited for me! Yay! At least I didn't have to sit at the stop and wait for the next bus. Of course, I was almost hyperventilating by the time I took my seat on the bus :-P hehehe. After getting off the bus, I walked towards Davey. Then I realized it was 11:45am, which made me a half hour late for class. I figured I may as well not go to class if I'm a half hour late already, so I went to get lunch. And now I'll go to my next class... So much for starting my day bright and early, huh? :-P
20 March 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Mami! And Happy Vernal Equinox! Yay, winter is over! Whoo-hoo!!!
14 March 2005
Happy PI day! (3.14, hehe hehe). Also, today is Albert Einstein's birthday!!! Aaaand... I re-decorated the Grad Bios page! It is now W3C Compliant. Yay! ... I haven't finished the Links pages in this website, though... Soon, don't worry :-)
13 March 2005
Well, it's not quite done yet... The links pages are not complete. But, I couldn't stand seeing that very default-looking white page with black text that I left as an excuse for updating the website. Sooooo, here it is! The new "Emily's Universe". I am very happy with the new design and the fact that every page is W3C Compliant. Yay! Oh, just so you know, there's a whole bunch of new pictures, so go look at them too!
12 March 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Papi! Feliz Cumpleaños, Tío Luis! Oh, and my suitcase arrived! Yay!
11 March 2005
So last night, my last night in Los Angeles, John and I wanted to go to a Puertorrican restaurant. We looked online, but most places were already closed by the time we called, or were closing soon. So we kept looking for Puertorrican restaurants in areas close to Los Angeles. And *gasp* we found out that Madre's, the restaurant owned by Jennifer Lopez, is in Pasadena, about an hour away from John's apartment!!! Hehe, I knew about that restaurant from watching VH1, but I didn't know where it was. I thought it would be really expensive, considering that it is recommended that you make a reservation before going there, and well, it's owned by Jennifer Lopez... But it wasn't really all that expensive. Ok, it was a little bit expensive, but not ridiculously. We saw the menu online and it looked SOOOO good... So John made a reservation, and we drove there, and oh-my-god, the food was great! They brought out a little bread basket that also had galletas de manteca, and I just love those! Then we ordered empanadillas de pollo as an apetizer, mmmmm. I then had pechuga a la plancha with arroz con gandules and tostones, and John had camarones empanados with arroz con gandules and plátanos maduros. Everything was soooo good. By the end of the night we were soooo stuffed, hehehe. Then we drove down to San Diego, where we were staying overnight in the Del Mar Hilton because my flight this morning was ridiculously early (6:30am). Now I'm back in State College, without my suitcase. I barely made the connecting flight, so I am not surprised that my suitcase didn't... And I miss my papito so much already :'( I wish I could be with him all the time...
9 March 2005
Website taken down to allow for update process. Should be done in a day or two...
8 March 2005: 10:30am PDT
I'm in Los Angeles, spending my Spring Break with my cutie John. He's here because there's a computational astrophysics workshop in UCLA and it happened to start this very same week that I'm on Spring Break. We had planned to spend my Spring Break together in Cali, so meh, San Francisco, Los Angeles, whatever :-P As long as there is no snow and temperatures are over 60°F, I'm happy :-) Hehe, something funny happened as we were walking this morning to the UCLA campus from John's apartment in LA... We looked at a map and John saw a "quick" shortcut from where he lives to campus, so we decided to walk. Taking this shortcut required cutting through a cemetery. We walked and walked and walked (it's also a little bit hilly, but not that much), and then we got to the cemetery. We walked in, walked and walked and walked to get to the other side of this humongous cemetery, and when we get to the other side, lo and behold, the gate is locked. Ugh. We look at the cemetery map, and there seems to be another gate on the right side of the cemetery. So we walk, and walk, and walk, AND WALK, and then when we get to the right end of the cemetery, that gate is locked too! Argh... So we go back to the entrance of the cemetery, which aparently is also the only exit, leave the cemetery and start walking around it... Ugh, I tell ya, that cemetery was HUUUGE. We must have walked like a mile and a half or two miles just inside the cemetary. We lost soooo much time walking there, like 45 minutes or something. This made John be late for the first tutorial of the workshop. It was supposed to start at 9am and then at 10am there was a coffee break. Well, we got here just in time for the coffee break :-P hehehe... And now he's in there in a lecture about numerical solutions to PDEs and I'm in the lobby of the IPAM building sitting on a very comfy chair, resting my legs from all the walking (we walked for an hour and a half total). When that lecture is done, we'll go to lunch and then I'll sneak in on the next lecture, which is on Smoothed-Particle Hydrodynamics... The list of topics for the workshop sounds sooo interesting, useful and cool, it's a shame that I wasn't able to apply for it. It lasts until June, and I'm taking classes, so I can't just take three months off, especially now that the comps are at the end of the semester. Oh well... But still, I'm in LA. We saw the Hollywood sign yesterday, walked down Rodeo Drive, saw the Chinese Theather (where movie stars leave their handprints in cement), and experienced LA traffic, where a 10 mile drive lasts about an hour. Good stuff ;-)
8 March 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Teddy!
7 March 2005
Feliz 25 Aniversario, Mami y Papi!
4 March 2005: 4:30pm
YES!!!! I rule! Alllll-riiiiiight!!! Aw yeah, I got skillz... I finally beat Super Mario 64. I got ALL 120 STARS in the game!!! Oh man, those last two stars were *really* hard to get, but I got them! Yesssss!!!! Whoo-hooo!!!! I've added a page with pictures and a narration of how I did it, so go check it out... And to make things even better and raise my mood even more, in just over two days I'll be flying to Los Angeles to spend spring break with my cutie John. Yay! A'ight, I think I deserve a reward... I should treat myself to a Nintendo DS and get the new version of SM64 that has 150 stars and see if I can beat that game too... Or I should get that MP3 player I've been thinking about getting for a long time now... Or I could get myself a really yummy chocolate cake... The options are endless!
3 March 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Titi Cely!
1 March 2005: 4:30pm
So I got home, and my roommate Pete was home, so I invited him to go make a snowman. He was surprised that I've never made a snowman before, hehe. We went outside and then he got an important call and had to leave :'( aww. But I wanted to make a snowman. So I called my cutie John and he was giving me directions on the phone, hehehe. He said to make a ball and then roll it in the snow. Well, I couldn't really master the physics of the rolling snowball, and I was getting nowhere. So I decided to just make a pile of snow and put more and more on top of it, and shape it into a snowman... Well... um... yeah... that wasn't too easy either. It seems like more snow was falling off than what was actually getting stuck in place. After one hour and fifteen minutes, a very sore back, pain in the knees and almost no feeling in my hands, I decided that I was done. I grabbed a couple of tree branch stick-looking thingies that were lying around and put them as arms, and drew a rudimentary smiley face with my finger. And took pictures, of course (they're in the "Seasons" page in the "Photo Gallery"). Then I came back inside. I noticed that my other roommate, Heiko, was already home, so I went to get him to show him my first lame-ass snowman. He too was surprised that I had never made a snowman. People, there is no snow ever in Puerto Rico, and last winter I couldn't get anyone to make a snowman with me (Bossi offered to help me make one, but it was mid-March already and the snow that was already there was ice-solid and no good snow was falling anymore). Therefore, it really should not be so surprising that this is my first snowman. Anyway, my snowman looks like the tip of a giant new Crayola crayon, fresh off the box. I'll put the pictures here eventually, after I finish the website redesign... And now I'll go lay down... I may be too old to be making snowmen... Ow my back :-P hehehe...
1 March 2005
It snowed a ton yesterday. I don't know how many inches exactly, but my car was snowed in. The plowing guys pretty much plowed all around except a circle of about four feet in radius around my car, so there was a LOT of snow around it. I had to shovel my way around, because even though I can pretty much handle driving over a couple inches of snow by now, I am sure as hell not even gonna try to drive over a little mount of snow that's about six inches tall. No way, nuh uh. Too scared that I'll get stuck... Anyhoo, I kinda had fun after I shoveled enough snow away. I was brushing the snow off my car and it was coming off in chunks, and when I grabbed one it packed tight, and I made a snowball. I left a big snow hat on top of the car, and bits and pieces of it were falling off as I was driving to campus today, hehehe. Cuz, yeah, I was sooo hoping that there was a big blizzard going on to get school canceled, but unfortunately there was no such blizzard and I did have to come to class today. Now I wanna go play in the snow... Anyone wanna help me make a snowman on the hill behind my apartment? I haven't made a snowman ever, so I'd need some help :-)
28 February 2005
It seems the Universe enjoys to conspire against me when I have deadlines. Mostly by making me get migraines at the most inconvenient moments. Migraines suck.
26 February 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Belmarylies!
24 February 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Titi Norma!
23 February 2005
So, a few years ago I had a Nintendo 64. When I got the chicken pox on freshman year (yeah, I didn't get chicken pox when I was little, I got it when I was already in college), playing Super Mario 64 was the only thing that kept my mind off the unbearable itchiness, and thus keeping me sane. In the two weeks that I was ill, I managed to obtain the necessary stars to kill Bowser and rescue the Princess. It was quite an achievement, and I was very proud of me for that. Then I kept playing until I got 110 stars, and I thought that I had gotten all the stars I could possibly get. Some time later, for reasons beyond my control, I did not have an N64 anymore. Fast forward a few years, and last January (2004), on a trip to the mall with Matt I saw a used N64 console for sale in EB Games for less than $20. I could not pass up the oportunity to reminesce, so I bought it, along with a few games. Two of the games I bought were Goldeneye (which, by the way, is awesome and will always be), and of course, Super Mario 64. In the next couple of days I re-did what I had done in a period of two weeks some 5 years earlier: I collected enough stars to kill Bowser and rescue the Princess. After that I played a couple more times, but then I stopped. I put the console in the box, and it went to my closet. Then I moved, and the box came with me, moving from one closet to the next. Then, a few months ago I found something wonderful online: Super Mario 64 FAQ/Walkthrough. My reaction: WOW! I rummaged through the page and discovered *gasp* that there are 120 stars in the game! Oh my god! How could there be 120 stars?!? I thought I had gotten them all back then! I have to get all the stars! But I couldn't because I was very busy with schoolwork and research. About a week ago, I decided to take out the old N64 and start playing again to get all the stars. The game I had saved had 85 stars. I started playing for a couple hours every other night or so. Let me just say that in six years you totally forget how to beat some of the hardest levels. I had to *cough*cheat*cough*, ahem, consult that webpage for hints on how to get some of the stars. But tonight, February 23, 2005, I went over my old 110 star mark. Right now I have 112 stars. Therefore, I only have 8 stars left to beat the game. And I know exactly where those stars are. Three are the 8-red-coin stars from the three levels where Bowser lives. Those are hard. The other five are stars that appear after you collect 100 coins. These are in five levels that barely have 100 stars, and so they will be hard to get too. But for now I can rest easily, because I went over 110 stars. I think I will stop playing now, and maybe after Spring Break I will try to obtain those other 8 stars and beat the crap outta the game. After getting 120 stars, according to the website, you can shoot Mario out of a cannon onto the roof of the castle, where Yoshi is waiting (it is the only place in the game where Yoshi appears), and he gives you 100 extra lives! I don't really see the point in getting 100 extra lives after beating the game in every possible way, but hey, what the heck, I'll go for it ;-)
21 February 2005
I saw a car with a Hawaii licence plate!!! Holy crap!
20 February 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Yari!
19 February 2005
Just so you know, the website redesign is almost done. Just a few more days... And now, take a look at another cute little thing that my cutie John made for me. Aww, he's so adorable!
15 February 2005
Awww! Look what my papito made for me. He's so sweet! *happy tear*...
15 February 2005
I just had a very frustrating experience that was thankfully worthwhile going through. But first I'd like to rant about the snow/ice/rain we had yesterday. It made me be late for class and it made my car slip and slide in every direction except the one I wanted it to take. Oh yeah, and by now it has totally melted away. It was there yesterday only to bug me... And now back to today's frustrating experience. I got up at 7:30 this morning, thinking to myself "Today will be a very productive day, right from the start. I'll be outta here in an hour, which means I'll be in the commuter lot by 8:45, which means I'll get a good parking spot close to the bus stop, all right! And then I'll be in Davey well before 9am, giving me plenty of time to do stuff before class at 10:30". Sounds good, right? Of course it does... Well, I got out of my apartment at 8:35, which means I'm already 5 minutes behind schedule. But that's ok, I can spare 5 minutes. I go down, get in the car, and head out. On my way out of the parking lot I have the painful realization that I'm heading east on a sunny morning and my sunglasses are sitting in my desk in my room. I *could* go back for them... But nooo, I just think that it won't be that big of a deal and keep going. A couple of minutes later I notice that going "South" on Atherton is actually going EAST. Yup, that's right. The bright morning sun is burning my retinas, as it remarkably sits just low enough in the sky to peek right between the two side thingies of every single traffic light I have to drive by on Atherton. By now I'm thinkin that maybe I *should* have gone back for my sunglasses, but hey, I'm almost at the intersection with Park, and I'll be turning left there, so no more sun in the eyes after that... I get to the Atherton-Park intersection and lo and behold, it's packed. The line is sooo long that it overflows out of the left-turn only lane. I'm the last car in the lane, half of me in the only lane and half in the next lane because of the divider. I sit there and move ever so slightly until finally at 8:55 I get on Park. According to my morning plan I shoulda been in the commuter lot ten minutes ago. No worries, I can still get there early enough to get a good spot, and it's still early enough to get some work done before class. A couple minutes later I'm sitting there waiting for the light at Bigler to turn green (this is two traffic lights away from the commuter parking lot), when I have a sudden realization: "GASP, I left my office keys at home!". The light turns green and I quickly make a mental assessment of how vital having those keys really is: "Building key - not necessary, building is open all day. Main office key (532) - probably not necessary because Kim always gets there early, but you never know. My office key (532B or whatever letter it is) - necessary if Brendan and Judy aren't there yet. Are they there? I don't know. Judy could be going to the gym this morning, which means she'll be in the office at 10. Brendan could or could not be getting there early. Damn it! I probably do need my office key @&#%$#@%". So I drive right by the commuter lot, but not without noticing that the first three rows are not even half full, meaning that good spots are totally available. I mentally weep for a second thinking of the good spot I'm giving up, and drive on by. I take the Toftrees road, thinking that it will be much, much faster than turning around and going back up Atherton, which in any case is a good bet. I happily go 55mph on that road until I come up to a very slooowww pickup truck, who of course takes every single turn that I need to take too. I finally lose him on Waddle and then I get stuck behind another slowpoke on Circleville. I get to my apartment at 9:07, leave the car running as I dart upstairs, grab my office keys and also my sunglasses, dart back downstairs and get in the car. Now I think that it probably won't be such a good idea to take Atherton again because I'll find a lot of traffic, again. So I decide to take the highway. I get on Valley Vista, where I happily go 60mph, then I get to the highway. Yes! I have never felt more pleasure from stepping on the gas and making the car rev-up loudly. Oh yeah, and it wasn't sunny anymore, so yeah, no more need for sunglasses. When I got to the commuter lot, the first two rows were already full and the third row looked almost full. I said "The hell with it", and drove straight up to the spots near the bus stop... I had a very pleasant surprise when I actually found a parking spot very close to the bus stop in the third row! Some girl walked by me when I was parking and gave me a disgruntled look. Hehe, she probably parked very far away thinking that the good spots were already taken, hahaha. Then I waited forever for the bus to get there. It was cold. The high today is supposed to be in the mid-50s, so I wore my 40s coat, not my 30s coat, and it was like 38 degrees when I was waiting for the bus. And kinda windy. Then the sun started shining again, so I pulled out my sunglasses. Yay, some validation. The bus finally arrived. All in all, I got to Davey at 9:40. Yeah, a lot later than I had planned. But, it was all worth it, because not even the main 532 door was open! I did use my keys! Both 532 keys! Yay! So it was a good idea that I did all that driving and went through all that frustration to get my keys. Judy got here at 10:20, and Brendan got here just now, and now it's time for class (10:30) and I didn't do anything productive because I was too busy writing all of this. Anyway, it was good that I had my keys, don't you think? Ok, class time! Bye!
11 February 2005
Hello internet! Hello people who roam aimlessly thru the internet! Hello friends who've been wondering what's up with me not updating the website for eons! I'm taking a little break (about a half hour) from work, and so I decided to write a little update. I've been insanely busy, and that's the main reason for the lack of updates. I know I promised a completely new website design in December and said it would be done before I came back to State College, but well, it's not done yet. I worked on it a lot during winter break before John got to Puerto Rico, and then once he was there I rarely even checked email ;-) Then I came back to PA and jumped right into the semester and a lot of work to do, so I haven't had time to just sit and write HTML. I have been sporadically making new pages, and right now all I'm missing from the re-design is the Photo Gallery (which is, by the way, the hardest thing to remake), and the Links pages. Everything else is already done. But I don't want to upload an incomplete website. After I'm done with everything, then I'll upload it and I'll have a new design :-) This is also the reason why I haven't moved the old updates to the Update Archive here. Why bother? I'm gonna have a new design soon anyway. And by "soon" I mean "sometime before Spring Break, maybe". Right now I'm working on creating a model star for my Stellar Structure class, and it's a pain to code. But it's due in three days, so I'll have to finish it soon, won't I? I'm hoping I can get a lot done in the next 9 hours or so, because tonight (around midnight) my cutie John will get to State College, because he is spending Valentine's weekend with me here. And since I want to give him as much attention as possible, I'll have to finish this homework ASAP. Other than that, sometime next week I should take Chandler Feynman (my car, for those that don't follow) for his 10,000 miles service. Wow, CF is getting close to 10k miles. It seems like I bought it just yesterday, hehehehe... Oh! So, there's some kind of problem with the heating in Davey (the astronomy building). It seems like the room with the servers is overheating, and aparently every single other room in at least the fourth and fifth floors (only places that matter to me) are also experiencing high temperatures. In one of the grad offices it's like 85°F. I should be happy, right? Well actually, I am not. Why? Because although every room is hotter than normal except my office, where the temperature continues to be in the 60sF. This is so not fair. All the northerners are complaining about the heat in their offices, and my office is at exactly the same temperature it has always been. And people wonder why I prefer working from home... Well, that's all for now. I have to keep working on this star model...
10 February 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Jonathan!
4 February 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Edgardo!
27 January 2005
Here I am, finishing my proposal for the NASA-GSRP fellowship, and I'm reading through the introduction of a paper. This paper has like one hundred thousand citations in the introduction alone. Suddenly I realize that pretty much every single astronomy paper has a ton of citations in the introduction alone, and many, many more in the body of the text... Now I wonder... Does a paper exist, a really old paper, in which there are NO CITATIONS WHATSOEVER, anywhere in the introduction nor the body nor anywhere else in the paper? There should be a paper like that, right? Maybe the first paper ever written. The paper where all astronomical ideas came from... I'll let citations to Newton, Kepler, Galileo, Maxwell, and similar big old names slide by, I won't count those. But these exceptions would apply to papers in the second half of the 19th century and beyond, not papers really recent to those. Let me explain: When Halley calculated the orbit of the comet that now bears his name, he must have cited Newton's theory of gravity, something like "Implementing the ideas set forth by Newton (1666), we will calculate...". And Newton himself had to cite Kepler, when he wrote down the proof for Kepler's third law... And Kepler had to cite Tycho Brahe, because all the data he used to derive the laws of planetary motion were collected by Brahe, so at least an acknowledgement should mention him... But I digress. Oh, and also, mentioning Einstein would count as a citation. He's a big name all right, but when he is cited early in the 20th century I'm certain that people had to write the whole bibliographical citation to the Annalen der Physik papers, right? ANYWAY, aside from that... No citations at all... Does it exist? If anyone knows of a paper like this, let me know... And yes, I know that I have suddenly become obsessed with the idea of no citations at all...
26 January 2005
Hee hee, hee hee... Yesterday, during my daily browse through Snopes.com, I came across a HILARIOUS little thingie... Ok, do this: Go to MSN MapPoint. Now choose Norway from the drop-down menu of countries. Now put Haugesund for the starting city, and Trondheim for the destination city. Then click the "Get Directions" button... HAHAHAHAHA!!! According to MapPoint, the quickest way between these two cities (which are both in Norway and are less than 500 miles apart), is to cross some body of water (I think the North Sea but I'm not sure -my European geography is not too good-), into England, cross the English Channel, then France, go to Belgium, then the Netherlands, a little while in Germany and Denmark, then across more water into Sweden, then back into Norway. HAHAHA! Did anyone say "there's a bug in their search algorithm"? hahaha!
25 January 2005
Today I woke up with a migraine. Last week I had a migraine on wednesday. The week before I vaguely remember having a migraine too. This is getting annoying. I'm not particularly stressed out, so I don't know why I'm getting them so frequently... Oh well, I just hope I don't get one again next week.
23 January 2005
Well, there was a big snowstorm in the northeast this weekend. Interestingly enough, the really big snowfall missed State College and we only got about 5 inches, which may seem like a lot but it's actually very small compared to places in MA that got like 30 inches. However, even though it was just 5 inches of snow, it was 5 inches of snow. Allow me to explain: as you may already know, snow accumulates on top of and around cars. My car was one of the unfortunate cars to be trapped in the snow. I decided that it would be good to dig it out today instead of tomorrow, so I'll have that out of the way tomorrow morning when I go to work... Well, a couple of weeks ago I complained about having to shovel a measly 2 inches that were evenly accumulated on my parking spot. Oh man, that was NOTHING compared to what I had to shovel today. My gah, that was awful. Took me like 40 minutes to clear out the snow from around my car! And not just that, the snow had made a stubborn little layer of ice on the front and back windshields that were very hard to scrape off. After I was done I was sweating like a pig inside my coat but I also could not feel my face due to the freezing 18°F temperature and awfully cold wind. And not just that, but my arms feel like they're gonna fall off. Jesus, the stupid snow is sooo heavy. Ugh, I'm so happy that we didn't get more snow. I cannot even begin to imagine how annoying it must be to shovel 10+ inches (people here have had to do that in previous years, so I'm assuming that I'll eventually find out what that's like)... So yeah, that's me whining about the snow. No more comments. Just that. Whining about the snow. Ugh, stupid snow...
18 January 2005
Snow driving tip #27: Do not immediately step on the gas when the light turns green, even if you're the first one in line. You'll experience a very unpleasant feeling as your car jiggles from side to side when the front wheels slide on the salty yet still somewhat snowy pavement...
17 January 2005: 11:10am
I survived. Phew! It wasn't so hard, actually. The parking lot was not plowed, but the roads were, so I didn't have to worry about snow while driving to campus. The big issue was all the time it took me to brush off 4 inches of snow accumulated on top of my car, and then slowly drive down the little hill and out of the parking lot. But, yay! I survived! *happy dance*
17 January 2005: 9:30am
Holy crap, it snowed a lot yesterday. And now there's a TON of snow in the parking lot. How am I gonna drive my car out of the parking lot??? I haven't driven in snow yet... I'm scared... I know this day was coming sooner or later, but but but but but, waaaahhh!!! :'( I'm scared... *deep breath* Wish me luck people, I'm going in. I'll keep you posted...
14 January 2005
Here's a very frustrating and embarrasing little story: I park my car in the commuter lot, I walk to the bus-stop, the bus gets there just as I am getting there too, I get on the bus, walk all the way to the back and sit down. The bus takes off. We drive towards campus. Right before my stop, I turn around to pull the thingie to request the bus to stop... And I see that Brendan (my officemate) was sitting behind me the whole time and I didn't see him! But he did see me, and he didn't say anything just to see how long would I go without noticing him... Argh, I hate being so despistada (or, as we'd say in PR, despistá)...
11 January 2005
Back in State College... Two words: snow and cold. It is absolutely NOT fun to shovel snow. There was about two inches of snow accumulated on my parking space, which of course I had to shovel because I didn't want to drive on it... Aside from that, classes already started (I missed the first two days), so tomorrow I have to get up early. I've made myself a weekly schedule because I will WORK a LOT this semester and I will NOT procrastinate, at all. That is my new year's resolution: to not procrastinate. And I will keep the resolution. I'll do it... Right now, my John is flying somewhere over the central US on his way back to Cali... I miss him. Two weeks together was just so wonderful, but now I won't see him for like a month... And now I'll stop before I start crying... OK, back to unpacking I go!
8 January 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Kathy!
6 January 2005
Feliz Día de Reyes!
2 January 2005
Well, the webpage redesign project has taken a back-seat to other more important things :-) Hehehe, John is here, and I'm having so much fun with him. I'm taking him everywhere, showing him around, introducing him to a bunch of people over here... He's been here for only four days so far, but these four days have been soooo much fun. Later I'll continue with the webpage stuff; for now, I'm going shopping with my papito in about one hour :-) :-) :-) Also... happy perihelion!
1 January 2005
Happy New Year! Feliz Año Nuevo!
