Summer 2005
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31 August 2005
Happy Birthday, Judy!
29 August 2005: 4pm
Wow, I'm still very impressed with Katrina. About an hour ago, it still had a well-defined eye even though the center was very well inland in Mississippi. Right now the eye seems to be slowly closing, but the thing still has 95mph winds, which puts it borderline between category 1 and category 2. And it's already very far inland, but still going strong. Wow. I'm amazed. Wow. They're definitely retiring the name "Katrina" from the list of hurricane names. Wow.
28 August 2005: 12:15pm
Holy crap! Hurricane Katrina is a *very* strong Cat 5 right now, with winds of 175mph and central pressure of 906mb!!! Wow! That's insane! It's also very symmetrical, with a very well-defined circular eye. It's really pretty on satellite, it looks like a donut. But yeah, the people in New Orleans and surrounding areas should definitely get the hell out of there *NOW*, because that's a very strong hurricane and it's heading straight there.
26 August 2005
I just took an awesome online quiz: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test. My results? Modern, Cool Nerd (82% Nerd, 56% Geek, 30% Dork). I'm super happy with it, I think the quiz got it right :-) If you're curious, this is the verbatim version of my results: "For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd... Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and 'geek is chic'. The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)! Congratulations!"... Again, awesome test :-D
25 August 2005
Ooh ooh! I just got two postcards from my cutie John who is in Germany in a conference. He sent me a postcard of Einstein in front of a blackboard writing the Ricci tensor and another one that has the Crab Nebula in optical light. Aww, isn't he the cutest?
25 August 2005
It seems like the Google Gods heard my prayer from about a month ago, when I asked for a Google Instant Messenger. Yesterday they released Google Talk, which is like an IM client thingie that also allows users to make voice calls over the internet. I haven't downloaded it yet, though. I read a few reviews and most people seem to think that it's "blah". My friend Ángel downloaded it, I guess, since I got an email from his gmail to my gmail inviting me to join Google Talk. I'm gonna have to talk to him about it and get his opinion. When I read the reviews I figured I'd just wait until it's out of the beta phase, and download it when it has better features. I still dunno what I'll do. We'll see... In other computer-related news, I've been using a little program called Thingamablog for the last two or three days. I've been using it to make a new "Research Blog", since my old one is pretty much dead and useless by now. Turns out, this Thingamablog thingie is very good! No, let me rephrase that. It is *awesome*. I realized that it's a good idea to keep a research notebook where I can write down details both big and small about my research project, and that keeping it chronological is very useful too. Then I realized that I hate my handwriting by now, since I've gotten used to *typing* everything and only writing when I need to sign something and other short-writing events, not long pages or lists like a research notebook requires. I started keeping notes in text files in my computer, but that was getting messy. Then I remembered about the research blog I had in my website, and thought that it would be good to start a research blog that would act as a research notebook. My John has been doing that for quite some time now, and he said it's a really good idea, so I decided to give it a shot. I looked around for a stand-alone program that wouldn't require me to make a username and password and that wouldn't require me to do anything online. I wanted a research notebook on my computer, not on the internet. And then I found Thingamablog, and it works wonderfully. Every entry gets put there chronologically, with a datestamp and a timestamp, and I can label each entry with tags for various categories. The program allows me to add as many categories as I want, and if I needed to, I could add as many authors as I wanted also. The program also allows me to have more than one blog, so I could have a separate research blog for separate research projects. It doesn't have capabilities for comments, but that's fine, since I'm just using it on my own. The program has a bunch of templates to choose from, and they are fully customizable, which is just awesome. I started out with a simple template and then I changed a few things in the template files and the CSS file, and now the blog is even W3C compliant! I don't think I'm gonna make this blog online, because it's just a research notebook for myself... I've been thinking about converting my Updates into a real blog, and since I absolutely love this program, I think that I might just actually do that. But not now. Eventually. I still have to deal with the Grads' Web Resources page (which right now just has a cute Star Wars inspired placeholder message), and also add my links, which I've been meaning to add to this website for like... three months? Maybe more... So yeah, ok, I'll shut up about blogs and websites and computer stuff now... Must go back to re-learning Fortran for my research...
24 August 2005
Every morning on my way to work I drive by a house that has the most gorgeous weeping willow tree I've ever seen... When I have a house, I want one of those in the yard. They're so pretty!
24 August 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Luimary!
22 August 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Ángel! 22 on the 22nd at 2:22pm :-)
21 August 2005
A while ago I found this page through online link-jumping: Open Letter to the Kansas School Board. It's all about the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If you haven't heard about the FSM, then you've been either living under a rock, studying and/or working endlessly, or you just haven't been link-jumping as much as I have :-P hee hee. Also, take a look at some disclaimer stickers for science textbooks. The first one on the top-left is the actual sticker that high school biology textbooks carry in Cobb County, Georgia, while the rest are an amusing response from a more scientifially-oriented viewpoint. In that same page, if you scroll down, you'll find a PDF called "15 answers to Creationist nonsense", and it's a really good article, so go read that too. Also, I recently read Time magazine's story about the Evolution Wars. What I got from that article is that those intelligent design folks are pretty clever: they know to say *just* the right things to make it seem like their ideas are actually scientific, and to the untrained ear they might even sound credible. The Time article is really good and neutral, which is a good thing, but in my opinion it should have said more about the reality of things, how intelligent design is a theological construct and not real science. And to wrap up today's science rant, check out this article from the New York Times, Politized Scholars Put Evolution on the Defensive (printer-friendly version). It points out the funding sources of the Discovery Institute and the real purpose behind the intelligent design movement. It's not the best discussion ever written about the subject, but it's still an interesting read nonetheless.
18 August 2005
Congratulations, Dan Krieger, for successfully defending your PhD dissertation! Give it up for Dr. Krieger! :-)
18 August 2005
I finally updated my CV! I updated all the versions, too (HTML, PDF, PS, MS Word). Yay! Also, Feliz Cumpleaños, Aida!
17 August 2005: 1:10pm
This is hilarious: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New 'Intelligent Falling' Theory. I *heart* The Onion, hehehe.
17 August 2005: 10:45am
I drove to work today extreeeemely slowly. When I passed through the location of my almost-accident yesterday, I drove even slower to take a semi-good look at the area. I'm still trying to piece together what happened, it was all so fast. I did notice that the speed limit sign wasn't where I thought it was: it was about five feet behind. The sign that ended up being about a foot away from the left side of my car was one of those "No stopping at any time" signs. The hole in the ground was delimited by a black fabric-looking square thingie. And right behind the speed limit sign there was one of those metal girder things that are used to mark the edge of the road, or the median in small highways. All in all, the patch of grass where my car stopped yesterday after swerving all over the place looked about as big as my car, maybe just a teeny tiny tad larger. I have NO CLUE how I got the car to stop right on the grass without hitting any of the two signs or the girder or the hole. It must have looked like I parallel-parked the car there, unintentionally. Oh, and on the road there's a hint of tire marks. They're not very dark - after all, this happened while I was going ∼30mph. But you can see them a bit, nonetheless. And I still don't know what the @%#$ happened for the car to start swerving and make me lose control of it.
17 August 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Luzmary!
16 August 2005: 10:45am
I almost just wrecked my car. Holy hot damn frickin crap, that was the scariest thing I've ever experienced while driving. I was driving along 212, just after the intersection with 201, where the road makes a slight curve to the left. It was drizzling lightly, but the road wasn't a whole lot wet. I was going 25-30 mph, because I had been approaching the traffic light and it was red, but then it turned green when I was a few hundred feet from it so I had stopped braking. I had passed the traffic light and was taking the slight curve to the left when my car just started GOING TO THE LEFT, onto the opposite side of the road, and there were cars coming!!! The car just kept going left! I didn't hit the car coming the opposite way because he braked a little bit, but if he had been going faster, I would have hit him head-on. I hit the brakes and steered to the right a bit, to get back onto my lane. Antilock brakes kicked in and the car started going to the right and didn't stop. It wouldn't just align itself with the road again, noooo, it first swerved to the left, and then it swerved to the right, and I went off the road. I WENT OFF THE ROAD! I went off the road and the car finally stopped on the grass to the right of the road. When the car stopped, I was about 12 inches to the right of a speed limit sign, which I miraculously didn't hit, and I was about three feet to the left of a big hole that was dug on the ground there, a hole that was about half the size of my car. Swerved left into on-coming traffic, swerved right totally going off the road, stopped in the grass between a speed limit sign and a big hole in the ground. The speed limit, by the way, said 35mph. All during the swerving my antilock brakes were vibrating under my foot and I was screaming bloody murder, and the tires were screeching like hell. I bet there are big dark tire marks left there on the road. After the car stopped I stayed there strangling the steering wheel for about a solid two or three minutes with my heart beating faster than a hummingbird's and almost hyperventilating. After the shock wore off a little teeny tiny bit, I drove the car off the grass and into the shoulder. I got out of the car and looked at the tires, thinking that maybe I had a flat tire that I hadn't noticed and that caused the swerving. Nope, all 4 tires were just fine. Then I called John and woke him up to whine to him about the near-wreck and to cry a little bit. He thinks I may have hit an oil patch. Since it was lightly drizzling, this is highly probable. The rain wasn't hard enough to wash away any oil that could have been on the road, so yeah, it is very likely that I hit an oil patch. Then I sloooowwwly drove the rest of the way to Goddard. I am still scared out of my mind. I had never experienced such a horrible and scary swerving, not even while driving in the snow in PA. *sniff* I'm still shaking...
15 August 2005
Ok, this is a long update and it's about a whole bunch of things, so sit back, relax and read. The broad subjects I'll be talking about are: my new favorite airline, my weekend with John in the Bay Area, and Super Mario 64. Well then, let's get started. My new favorite airline - This time I flew to San Francisco via Independence Air. This airline rocks. It's just awesome. I've heard that JetBlue is the best thing since sliced bread, but I haven't flown them yet. I'll fly JetBlue on Labor Day weekend, so by then I'll be able to make a comparison. But for now, Independence Air is the best so far. Ok, I haven't exactly traveled the world, but I've flown American, Continental, Delta, United and US Airways, and this was the second-best experience I've had while traveling. Why second-best? Well, there was that one time when I visited NYU Physics when they accepted me for grad school, so they paid for the flight (American, roundtrip SJU-JFK), and the return flight to Puerto Rico ran out of seats except for seat 2A in business class. Oh man, that was awesome. The seat was huge, it reclined way far back, it had a footrest and lumbar support, they had three options for meals (with salad and dessert too, and free wine), and it was just plain awesome. And it was all free because I was visiting a grad school, and it was totally accidental because they ran out of seats in coach :-) hehe. So now you know what my best experience traveling has been. So, compared to that, nothing else comes close, because every other time I've gotten on an airplane it has been on coach. Well, this time I flew with Independence Air. They have all coach seats, but they're leather and comfy, and the legroom is amazing, even if you're not on an exit row. The flight attendants were incredibly nice and fun, they had snacks in flight that you didn't have to pay for, and at the end of the flight they gave us a hot towel, something that I had only seen that one time I flew business class via American. And another thing: they sell those really comfy squishy neck pillows for $10. They also sell fleece blankets. They're new, not used by anyone before (unlike generic airline pillows and blankets). Now, you might be saying: "But they sell them for $10, why should I pay $10 if I get it for free with all the other airlines?". Well, they sell you those things for $10 each, but then if you buy one, they give you a certificate for $10 off your next purchase of a roundtrip ticket. So, the pillow and/or blanket that you "buy" come out to be pretty much for free. And you get to keep them for whenever you fly again, in any airline. They also have something called "digEplayer", and it's like a personal entertainment device thingie that they rent also for $10 and it has like 10 movies and 10 TV shows and a whole bunch of other things. They also give you the $10 off certificate if you rent one of those things. I didn't rent one because my flight there was late at night and my flight back was a red-eye, so I wanted to sleep during both (and slept a grand total of two hours each way... meh, I can't sleep much while sitting down)... Anyhoo, all these reasons lead me to conclude that I now have a favorite airline, and that is Independence Air. After I fly JetBlue I'll decide which is better... My weekend with John in the Bay Area - As always, I had a wonderful time with my papito chulito while visiting him. He lives in Half Moon Bay, which is right on the Pacific Ocean, so it was cold all the time (seriously, the highs were in the low 60s, and this is August we're talking about here). We did a whole bunch of stuff on Saturday, including driving around a very wind-y road which had a stop sign that someone had vandalized so that it now says "STOP - Hammer Time" (this, btw, was hilarious). We went looking for seals on a beach south of where he lives because he had seen them there before, but we went during high tide, so there weren't any seals (there were lots of birds, though). We went to Stanford and I saw his office (I hadn't seen it yet), and we went to the Stanford Bookstore. Oh my god, they have SOOOO many astronomy and physics books there. I wanted them all. Well, ok, not *all*, but a rather large fraction of them. We then went to dinner at a restaurant in downtown Mountain View called Pasta? that had (wanna guess?) excellent pasta :-P Then we were dorks and drove around until we found the Google headquarters and took pictures of the signs that had the Google logo on them, hehehe. Then we drove over to Redwood City, where John is moving to in about three weeks, and he showed me where his new place will be. Then we went back to Half Moon Bay and got ready for a night on the town ;-) We went to a club named 1015 in San Francisco. The club was awesome. We had a lot of fun. We came home rather early because I was still on Eastern time and for me it was almost 6am already. Then on Sunday we just laid around all day doing nothing, mainly because I got an annoying migraine in the afternoon. Then he drove me back to the airport Sunday night, we said goodbye and now I'm back on the East coast... Another thing I did during the weekend: I learned how to pick up Jeremy in the right way so that he doesn't squirm and want to jump out of my arms (Jeremy's the grey one in the picture). I think I'm finally learning to get used to having cats around :-) I think Jeremy likes me. He's a cute little silly kitty. I didn't pick up Sampson (the black one in the above link) because he's kind of a diva and doesn't like to be picked up. He did fall asleep on top of me though, so I guess he kinda likes me a little bit too. All in all it was a great weekend. John leaves for Germany on Thursday (he's going to a conference), then after he comes back he moves to his new place and I go visit him over Labor Day weekend, so I'll be helping him unpack and settle into his new place :-) Then he comes over here the weekend after that for our anniversary on the 10th, yay! Aw, it's almost been a year. The best year of my life :') ... Super Mario 64 - A while back I told the story of how I finally beat Super Mario 64. Well, this afternoon I was chatting with John about that, and I told him about a website I'd seen a while back that claimed to have a video of someone playing through the entire game, all 120 stars, in just under 3 hours. I tried to download the video but the file was corrupted in the server I tried, so I gave up. Well, John found the video for me, and he downloaded it and sent it to me. I watched it tonight. The entire three hours. It was AMAZING. Oh my frickin god, whoever played that is a gaming god. The dude got all 120 stars in a little bit less than 3 hours, and he only lost 4 lives along the way. He did all sorts of tricks (tricks, not cheats - everything he did was totally and completely legal, no glitches were involved in the 3-hour-long gameplay), and he was jumping around like there was no tomorrow, even in levels like Rainbow Ride and all the Bowser levels, where I always feel like I'm gonna fall off to my death. It was amazing. I am impressed. Totally and completely impressed. Now I want to do that... But, I know I'll never be able to achieve such gaming greatness, so I'll settle for having at least beat the game and unlocked Yoshi :-) And now I'll stop talking, because this has been long enough as it is. You can stop reading now and go on with your daily routine...
14 August 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Julián!
12 August 2005: 5pm
Well, it's Friday at 5pm. Any other Friday this would mean that in about an hour or so I'd be going home, and then eat dinner and relax while watching The Simpsons. Today, on the other hand, is different! First of all, I've just moved all my stuff to my new office here in Goddard. See, I've been in a temporary office for the last three weeks while the office space here was being re-arranged. On Monday I'll be in my new office where I'll stay until December, at which point I'll go back to my *other* office in Penn State. So, to make the move easier, I packed all my stuff and put it all in a couple of shelves in the new office. I don't have all that much stuff here to begin with, so that was quick and painless. And the other reason why today is special is because as soon as I'm done writing this update, I'll be getting out of work and driving straight to Dulles Airport (which is about 40 miles from here), where I'll take a non-stop flight into San Francisco to go visit my John for the weekend! Yayyy!!! I wonder how bad the traffic is gonna be on the Beltway. It is, after all, a Friday afternoon. And I'll be driving past the 495/270 intersection, which is always jammed on the way to northern VA. I'll stay in San Fran until Sunday night, when I'll take a red-eye back here and arrive Monday morning, to then go against Monday morning Beltway traffic to get to work. Hehehe, I'll be taking part in the two worst traffic moments over here: Friday afternoon and Monday morning. Oh well, it's all worth it because I get to spend a couple of days with my papito, who I miss way too much. Hopefully the construction delays won't be too bad, and also hopefully there won't be any accidents or other situations that will shrink the Beltway from 5-6 lanes to 1-2 lanes, because that always sucks... And now I'm off! Bye-bye!
11 August 2005: 4:30pm
I just organized the crap out of the research I've done in the past year. Allow me to explain in gory detail: I took all the papers I'd used, organized them by order of importance and put them in a blue binder; wrote down all the titles/abstracts of all the papers, printed that out and put it in the binder; printed the two talks I've done on the subject (four slides per side of the page) and put them in the binder; printed all the papers I'd written on the subject (Summer 2004, Fall Project 2004, GSRP Proposal 2005) and put them in the binder; and printed a little 8.5in x 11in version of the poster I presented in the APS meeting in April 2005 and put it in the binder. Then I labeled the binder with the title of my project, my name and my collaborators' names with a black Sharpie, and now it's all pretty and organized. I feel good. I feel very good indeed.
11 August 2005: 10:30am
Sit down, this is a rant. Yesterday I got two bills: electric and cable/internet. So this morning, while getting ready to come to work, I decided to write the checks and mail the bills. First off, electric. The Potomac Electric something or other (PEPCO) addressed the bill to Emily A. Munoz. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH! It is soooo frustrating every time that happens, because as I've stated a gagillion times before, *that* is not my name. I shouldn't even have to pay that bill, right? After all, I am not Ms. Munoz, nor do I know her, nor have I ever met her (I did pay the bill, btw). Then it was time for cable/internet. Comcast did a slightly different thing. Aside from putting the wrong address (I'm very impressed with whoever was the mailman that figured out the correct street name), they wrote the bill to Emily Alicea'Munoz. Bear with me, that's a subtle one. Notice the apostrophe where the hyphen should have been? I can honestly say I'd never seen this before. I know of names like O'Connor and O'Malley, which have the apostrophe between an O and the rest of the name, but that's Irish, right? I don't have any Irish roots that I know of. In high school I traced my family tree back to two of my great-great-grandfathers, and they were from Spain, not from Ireland. So yeah, the apostrophe is quite confusing. Maybe the person that took my order when I got the cable/internet installed thought that a "hyphen" is the little comma-looking thingie that goes between the n and the t in "don't". Or maybe it was a typo. Or maybe... nah, seriously, I have no clue where the apostrophe between Alicea and Munoz came from. Oh yeah, and there was no "ñ", but I'm already used to that... And now for the second part of my rant. It's about slow drivers. You may remember that not too long ago I wrote a rant about State College drivers braking when they see a green light. Well, today on my way to work I was stuck behind one of these people, but he/she had a Maryland licence plate. Aproaching the intersection of 212 and 201, the light was green and Mr. Slow-King-of-Maryland started braking. I was flabbergasted. I thought momentarily that I was back in central PA. Then, while on 212, the guy was just going too damn slow. There were about 7 cars behind me, I was behind the guy, and the guy was behind no one. That's right, there was no one in front of Mr. Slow-King-of-Maryland, yet he was going about 30 in a 50 zone. Well, I think the speed limit is 50mph there, because pretty much every other car goes at around 50 or 60 there. Anyway, very slow indeed. Argh, it was so frustrating. I was already running late, partly because of the slowpokedness of this driver in front of me, and partly because I hit the snooze button in the alarm clock about seven times this morning... In conclusion, utility companies in Maryland don't know how to properly write my name, and some Maryland drivers are just as bad as central PA drivers. At least the Beltway doesn't have that many slowpokes. It does have endless traffic jams and crazy lane switchers, but dammit, that's more fun than being stuck behind a slowpoke.
8 August 2005: 4:27pm
This is really cool. I'm doing a literature survey to see where my research project should pick up, and I was looking for some abstracts on the Astrophysics Data System (ADS). Well, I found the coolest thing ever. Really, it is. If you search for "alicea-munoz" (making sure to check the boxes for "Astronomy/Planetary", "Physics/Geophysics" and "arXiv e-prints"), you'll see that I have two entries listed! Ok, so both of those are posters, and I have no actual papers yet, but hey, it's still way cool as far as I'm concerned ;-)
8 August 2005: 1pm
Every day I see more and more things written about the whole "evolution controversy". Thankfully, some of the things I've read are logical; however, it's sad how many wrong things are being said. On the good side of things is an article in the SF Gate, where they explain how the issue is being handled in the California school system. Sadly, not a lot more states are handling the situation as well as California. They point to a very good website from UC Berkeley titled Understanding Evolution, which is a must-read for any person without a scientific background who wants to thoroughly understand what is going on and what is the proper course of action. Another website I found a while ago which is interesting is the Talk.Origins Archive, so check that out too. One of the many things that bother me about this whole issue is a recent article written by a Catholic cardinal in which he says evolution contradicts Catholic doctrine. The Boston Globe has a good review of the situation. This is really odd and sad, because I went to Catholic school when I was little, and I was taught evolution in science class, and this did not conflict in any way, shape or form with whatever they were also teaching us in religion class (guess which class I liked better - science or religion, hehe). Also, Popes Pius XII and John Paul II had spoken on behalf of evolution, stating that scientific theories do not interfere with religious dogmas... Why does the whole thing bother me? I'm not an evolutionary biologist. I'm not a politician either. But it really bothers me when politicians and religious groups try to undermine scientific standards. If they manage to topple evolution, then they'll want to move on to other targets. Astronomy perhaps? Fundamental physics? And that's where they start messing with me, because that's my field. I'm sure most scientists (if not all) feel this way, and this is why we should educate the general public about the ways in which real science is done, so that they can distinguish between scientific research and unfounded propaganda. I'm not saying that religion is bad; all I'm saying is that there is a time and a place for everything. Evolution goes in science class; intelligent design goes in theology/philosophy class. See what I'm sayin?
8 August 2005: 12:11am
I'm having a *big* D'OH moment right now. I didn't know that my cameraphone had different resolutions. When I got this new phone and took the first few pictures with it, I was amazed that they came out all big and pretty (res at 640x480). My old phone took teeny tiny pictures, so I was very happy with the big and pretty pictures that this phone was taking... Well, I just uploaded to my computer a few pictures I had taken a while ago, and noticed that they came out teeny tiny (res at 160x120). Why did that happen? Well, turns out that my phone has *three* options for camera resolution: small, medium and large. The default setting is *large*, which is 640x480... Well, in the last few weeks my phone managed to somehow take pictures of the inside of my purse, and along the way changed the resolution of the camera to the lowest resolution. Ergo, all the pictures I've taken came out 160x120. Grrrr...
7 August 2005
Ya know, I'd never lived by myself, alone, ever. I lived in my parents' house 100% of the time until I went to college. Then in college I lived in a house I rented with five other girls during the week, and on the weekends I went back to my parents' house. Upon moving to PA, I lived one year with one roommate, and the next year with two roommates. Right now, I'm living in Maryland all by myself in a studio apartment, until December. I must say, the whole living-on-my-own thing has been good so far. There are so many good points about living alone, and today I discovered a new one. I just cleaned my whole apartment, the whole thing, and it took me less than an hour and a half. I cleaned the kitchen (floor, counters, stove, George Foreman grill, dishes), the bathroom (toilet, sink, floor, shower), and I vacuumed the rest of the apartment (living room and bedroom), and it took less than an hour and a half. The apartment wasn't even that dirty. This is mainly because (a) I'm only cleaning after myself, not anyone else, and (b) since I know I'm responsible for cleaning the whole thing, I guess I've been less of a slob than I usually am. Not that I'm that big of a slob regularly anyway, but you know. Now when I realize some area of the apartment is a little dirty or out of order, I tend to it sooner than I would in a different situation. True, I've only made my bed twice or thrice since I moved here, but I don't have piles of dirty clothes in a corner of the room either. And yes, I hadn't swept the kitchen floor until right now, but I never had piles of dirty dishes in the sink in the entire two weeks I've lived here. I've been pretty good about doing the dishes immediately after eating, so dirty things haven't had time to accumulate... In conclusion, it's been good, this whole living-by-myself thing... Oh yeah, and I changed the font here again. Now it's Tahoma. It's a bit less bold than Trebuchet MS and a little bigger, but it's smaller than Verdana, the one that I had before. So yeah, now the font is Tahoma. And I like it... Oh, and: Feliz Cumpleaños, Zuleima!
5 August 2005
Just found a very interesting and informative page via Cosmic Variance about "intelligent" design and how wrong it is. Good reading :-)
3 August 2005: 9am
Random thought before packing the laptop and heading to work... Have you seen the new Advantage commercial (it's some sort of anti-flea something). You know, the one with the yellow kitty walking around in a yard and the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in the background... Ain't it cute? It's so cute. That's a cute kitty. Kitties are cute, hehe...
3 August 2005
I woke up at 7:15am today and am very sleepy (it's 8am now). I slept until veeery late yesterday due to the migraine medicine being super drowsy at times, and couldn't fall asleep early last night, partly because of the sleeping until late, and partly because an entry in a blog I read regularly had me going, and then even more when a commenter started praising Intelligent Design and said some iffy things about the Big Bang. So today I got up early because I have a meeting at work at 10:30am, and to wake myself up I read some blogs and some news, and found something on Cosmic Variance that irked me. I'm sure all scientists got irked too when they heard about this... I have one thing to say: TSK TSK TSK. Doesn't he have a science adviser of sorts? Geez... Now, on the lighter side of news, I'm working a little bit on a new page for the grads in PSU Astro: Grads' Web Resources. The page contains nothing of importance right now, but Kim and I will be managing it and will put all sorts of important stuff there: the Grad Bios page (which is currently in my directory), the Grad Calendar (currently on Kim's directory), and the PSU thesis info (currently on Michele's directory), among other things. I'll try to get it linked from the Graduate Studies section in the Department's website, as it will be an unofficial go-to place for all the grads and hopefully for prospective grads also. Don't know when it will be finished, because I'm only working on it sporadically (I have work to do, you know), but I can say that the banner looks awesome. John made me a banner in Photoshop and it's preeeeetty. You'll see it soon enough :-) Ok, now it's time for me to get ready to go to work. I'm awake enough by now to handle some Beltway traffic.
2 August 2005
Test-driving a new font for the main text of the website: "Trebuchet MS". Any thoughts? Do you like this better? Or did you like the old font (Verdana)? Which font is prettier: Trebuchet, Verdana or Tahoma? To me, Verdana and Tahoma look pretty much the same, and Trebuchet looks like a slightly girlier version of those too. A little smaller, a little bolder. I'll try it out for a while, and eventually I'll decide whether to keep it or not.
1 August 2005
Well, it's been one week since I started my coop. And I'm *almost* done with the paperwork by now :-P Ok, I haven't been doing the paperwork 24/7, but it really was a lot. Now all I have left to do is some health insurance thingies and some tax thingies, and then I'm done. Yay. Oh yeah, and deal with my registration in Penn State for one credit of off-campus research. Speaking of which, I want to thank SherryDawn for helping me with all the Penn State paperwork and registration issues (I've been bugging her a lot via email in the past week), and for being so kind to go to the University Health Services and get my migraine pills and mail them to me, because that certainly took a huuuuuge worry off my head. For those keeping count, I only had *two* pills left, so without SherryDawn's help, I would be in a great deal of trouble once those two pills were gone (and at the rate I'm getting migraines lately, that would have happened in less than a week). Sooo, thank you, SherryDawn!!! :-)
27 July 2005
So many forms to fill... so many forms... Anyway, so last night I had a migraine. Now I have three migraine pills left. I have three refills left on the prescription, but they're from University Health Services all the way up there in Penn State, a good ∼4-hour drive from here... And they don't mail prescriptions to students... And they're only open during business hours on weekdays (which is the same time period when I have to be at Goddard)... And I'm pretty sure they don't give out person X's prescriptions to person Y (last time I got a prescription they asked me for my student ID)... Hmmmm... [yoda] Me thinks a refill before coming here needed I to get... [/yoda]
25 July 2005: 6:15am
Oh good god... It is six in the morning... I'm awake... And it's not because I'm going to sleep now. Noooo, I'm awake because I just woke up... It's a rare occasion when I get up this early, usually when I'm in the middle of a 28ish-hour day cycle (this happens a lot during off-academic periods). The other reason for getting up early is when I actually have something important to do early in the morning. Today, this is the reason. I start my coop in Goddard today, and I have to get there at 7:45am. Given how far away from Goddard I live, and how horrible the morning traffic is in the DC area, I should leave home around 7am to get there on time. Ergo, waking up at 6am. Aw, and it's raining. Rain is sooo good for sleeping-in... Oh well... Time to start getting ready... BTW, sorry if this seems a bit incoherent. It's fricking six in the morning...
24 July 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Ailec!
23 July 2005: 4:45am
Random thought of the day: I wish there existed such a thing as "Google Instant Messenger" because it would be really awesomely cool. Yes, I'm a total Google addict. I Google like twenty gagillions times each day, for absolutely anything and everything. I read Google News more often than CNN or BBC or ENDI. I have a Gmail account, though I forward it to my Penn State astro email and I still don't use it as much as my two very old Yahoo email addresses (force of habit, ya know). I use Google Maps, mostly with Firefox because they seem to get kinda buggy with Internet Explorer (and btw, when is IE going to get some tabbed browsing?). I absolutely adore the cute little Google Moon that showed up recently, and I love how it turns to cheese if you zoom all the way in. And the Google SMS is just about the most useful thing ever invented for use with a cell phone, ever. So seriously, why isn't there a "Google Instant Messenger" (GIM)? I think it would be a very useful IM client. It should allow users to get their own GIM accounts AND use all their other messenger accounts (Yahoo, AIM, MSN, ICQ, etc). It would surely beat Gaim and Trillian and all other multiple-account messenger thingies just because it's from Google... Ok, I'm ranting already, and I've linked a lot too... Time for bed...
21 July 2005
I'm alive, I'm alive. I haven't updated in like, forever, because I was packing/moving/unpacking. I am now in Maryland, in my new apartment (temporary though: only for the coop semester). I start my coop in Goddard next Monday, so I came down here a week early to have enough time to settle in. John came over from San Francisco to help me move, which was really, really, really nice of him. We packed my car to the point that air barely fit in there :-P My apartment here is a studio, and as soon as I'm done with the unpacking I'll take some pictures and put them in the Photo Gallery. The last few days have been full of trips to Ikea, Home Depot and Target, and trying to avoid the Beltway traffic. John left today, and now I have to deal with the rest of the unpacking by myself. It's always nice to have someone helping when you have to do annoying stuff, isn't it? Oh well... I wish he could have stayed longer, but he has work to do, and so will I starting next week, so a longer stay was not possible... Hopefully I'll be able to visit him soon... Ok, time for lunch, and then some more unpacking.
17 July 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Elisa!
15 July 2005
Ok, I haven't added the links, nor have I finished making the modifications I wanted to make to the website. I *will* do them, though. Really. Before I start my coop in Goddard... For now, I'm packing. Tomorrow morning I pick up John at the airport (yay!), and he'll help me with the rest of the packing over the weekend. Then, bright and early on Monday morning we drive down to Maryland. I move in to my apartment in Beltsville on Monday, and then John goes back to San Francisco on Wednesday. Then I have a few more days of not getting up early, and then on July 25 I start my coop, bright and early. I have to report to the Human Resources office at 7:45am. I still don't know how I'll get up that early :-P I'm sure I'll figure out a way by then, hehehe...
13 July 2005
Happy Birthday, Brendan! Happy Birthday, Beau!
11 July 2005
I swear, State College drivers are afraid of green traffic lights. Seriously, what is it with people that see the green light and then slow down almost to a stop? I mean, the green light means "GO", not "slow down and almost stop". I can't even count the number of times it has happend to me in the last few days: driving right behind someone who slows down to a crawl when the light is green and there's no one in front of them. Geez, so annoying...
9 July 2005
New pictures up today, in "Friends", "Family" and "Around Puerto Rico". There's also a new subsection with pictures in the "My Gringuito" page titled "Summer 2005 in Puerto Rico". Also, I'm thinking about making a few changes to the website. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and as such, I am never satisfied with the look and feel of the website. I'm always thinking of ways to improve it. So yeah, I may do that tonight, or tomorrow. And I'll add the links soon enough, before moving to Maryland on the 18th, I promise.
6 July 2005: 9:05pm
Holy hot damn frickin crap. Chuck and Caitilin won in "Beauty and the Geek". Richard and Mindi managed to tie the score in the final elimination and get two tie-breakers, and then Richard screwed up by not knowing Mindi's middle name (that was the last question he got asked). He got it wrong, therefore lost the third tie-breaker, therefore lost. Geez, that was a very stressful series finale there. Oh man... I'm kinda disappointed that Mindi lost, but oh well, I'll still tune in next week for the reunion special...
6 July 2005: 5pm
I got my iPod mini! I got my iPod mini! I got my iPod mini! *happy dance* What color? Pink, of course ;-) And John had it inscribed with a cute little message :-) Yay, iPod mini!
6 July 2005
Ever heard the term "earworm"? That's what you call a song that's kind of annoying and gets totally stuck in your head after you hear it a couple of times. Now, go see the Magical Trevor animation. I dare you not to smile while watching and listening to it. And later on, I dare you to not have the song stuck in your head... *singing* Everyone loves Magical Trevor 'cause the tricks that he does are ever so clever. Look at him now, disappearing the cow, where is the cow, hidden right now... *shakes head* Stop it!!! Gaaahh, see? Totally stuck in my head... In other news, tonight is the series finale of my new guilty pleasure: Beauty and the Geek. I almost didn't watch it because of that little detail of having Ashton Kutcher as producer, but it really is a cute little show. And tonight's the finale. I want Mindi to win, but not her partner Richard. The other couple, Chuck and Caitilin, meh, don't really feel anything for them. So yeah, go Mindi!
5 July 2005
Happy aphelion! And, due to popular demand... (read next one)
4 July 2005
Happy Birthday, USA!
29 June 2005
My suitcase arrived, yay!
28 June 2005
Well, I'm back in State College. And, surprise surprise, they lost my suitcase. I'm beginning to think I have an "unlucky" suitcase, because it's always getting lost. Either that, or they just suck at transporting luggage. I'm hoping it shows up soon, like tomorrow... Aside from that, my "painful sunburned shoulders" have now become my "itchy peeling shoulders", which I prefer over the pain even though the new feeling is most annoying. It also looks like a slight hint of a tan is hiding under the scaly shoulder skin that swiftly peels with each scratch, and this is good. In almost two years of living in central PA my skin lost all traces of its previous tropical lifestyle. Translation: I got pale as a ghost (ok, fine, I was never all that tan to begin with, but I was never as pale as I've been in the last two[ish] years). Therefore, the teensy bitsy bit of color I got from that sunburn is very welcome :-) And now I'll sum up my return to latitude 41°N: I'm back in State College, I'm slightly tanned, my shoulders are peeling, I had lots of mail waiting for me, I have high-speed internet once again (yay, after two weeks of very slow dialup), and John should be back in California by now (his plane was delayed, so he's still flying somewhere above the middle of the country). *whisper* I miss him already, way too much :'(
26 June 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Miguel!
24 June 2005
Ow, ow, ow, ow... Day 3 of the burned shoulders saga. John and I went to the beach on Wednesday. In spite of the sunblock, we got really bad sunburns. Ah, that 18°N latitude sun is definitely different than the one at 41°N; it's way much stronger. Especially around the Summer Solstice, huh? John's shoulders look like tomatoes, all red-pink, and mine have a little darker shade of red. Today is the third day we've been like this, and it huuuuurts a lot. Even the slightest touch is enough to cause a great amount of pain. Oh well... Hopefully the pain will go away soon. Then the peeling will begin. And the itching. But yeah, peeling and itching is better than touch-activated pain. *crossing fingers for a fast recovery*
23 June 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Robert (Santiago)!
21 June 2005
Happy Summer Solstice!
18 June 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños a mi! Happy Birthday to me! Today I turn 4! (get it? 4 factorial? 4! = 4x3x2x1 = 24, hehehe).
17 June 2005
Holy heatwave, Batman! I think living in central Pennsylvania for almost two years has totally thrown off my heat tolerance. As soon as we stepped outside of the airport terminal I felt a slap in the face of hot and humid weather like I haven't felt in a long time. And it wasn't any better when we got to my parent's house. They only have AC in their bedroom, so me and John have to make do with a ceiling fan and a floor fan. According to the 5 o'clock news, there's a mini heatwave lasting a few days and we arrived smack-dab in the middle of it. Heat indices going up to 105°F. I vaguely remember being able to stand such temperatures. Now I'm turning into a big weather wussy. I felt like I was melting in the scorching heat. No fair. That means that my comfort zone has shrunk. I still think that less than 65°F is cold, but now I think that more than 90°F is getting to be too hot. If I go outside and there's a breeze, then it's not that bad, but inside the house, geeez! The good side: this kind of weather allows for perfect beach days, so we'll be hitting beach soon enough.
15 June 2005
*singing* Going to Puerto Rico tomorrow, going to Puerto Rico tomorrow, going to Puerto Rico tomoooooorrow... and Papito is coming with me, yipee!
13 June 2005
I'm making a few changes here and there in the website. Most of them are subtle, but they make the HTML cleaner and the presentation smoother. They are noticeable if you look carefully enough. I also added a few things to my "two last names" rant in the "Personal" page (mainly, more details about the reason for the two last names and a little pronunciation exercise)... Nooo, I'm not procrastinating putting up all the links that are still missing form the "Links" pages, not at all, not one single bit ... *whistles and looks around* ... Ok, yeah, I'll do that soon enough... Oh, I updated my CV, but so far only the HTML version. Updated Word/PDF/PS versions will be arriving shortly...
12 June 2005
Happy Birthday, Mia!
10 June 2005
Well, I *finally* got around to putting up the digital mountain of pictures I needed to put in the website. This was quite a feat, given that either Adelphia's being weird lately, or our router is slowly starting to die. Anyway, there's a few new pictures in the "Seasons" page, and some Arecibo pictures that Ángel took in the "Puerto Rico" page. And the place where I did the most work adding stuff: "My Gringuito" page. There's a couple of new random pictures of John, and also there's two new pages: "Spring Break 2005" (finally!), and "Six Flags Great Adventure". Now the only updates I have left to do are to my CV and my Massive Black Hole Binaries page in the "Resesarch" section. And soon I'll need to update the Grad Bios page to add the new first years, and (unfortunately) remove the Former Grads :-/ Sorry guys, but it has to be done... Anyhoo, me and Kim will try to get a separate "grads" web directory to store the Bios page as well as other useful things (e.g., calendars and thesis stuff) that we grads have randomly scattered about (i.e., whoever made something useful stores it in their web directory), but I am not sure when that will actually happen... In any case, I need to update the Bios page also. But first I'll finish updating *my* website... Maybe later today... Oh yeah, and the "Links" pages need to be fixed too, given that they're still pretty much blank... Ok, gotta do that too...
9 June 2005
Feliz Cumpleaños, Luimaricita! Also, I've finally started to update the website. First off, the Gradschool Projects page in the Research section. I added my presentations for Observational Astrophysics, and also my talk and paper for the GRBs seminar. And, I put up the pictures from the APS meeting in Tampa (Photo Gallery, under "Travel").
8 June 2005
Congratulations, Angélica, for passing your Medical Physics Qualifier Exam! Felicidades!!! :-)
7 June 2005
Mmmmm, 90°F...
3 June 2005
Well, I've been vegetating for the last week or so (and Adelphia has been acting weird from time to time too, so my internet time has been severely affected). I'll stop the laziness soon enough, though (need to do some research). But for now, I've been playing The Sims. This game is wicked addicting. And I'm playing the original version, not the newest versions with expansion packs and whatnot. There's something to be said about playing the original version of an awesomely great and timeless game. Sorta like playing the original SimCity (you know, the 2D one, that came out in the late 80s or early 90s and ran on DOS and Windows 3.1/95, and now exists as an online game). I used to be very addicted to that game. I managed to maintain a few super-duper megalopolis cities. And now with The Sims, I've managed to maintain the lives of my little Sims for one Sim-year. I started with a single Sim, in a little house, with a modest job. Now she's married, with a kid, a huge two-bedroom/two-bathroom/two-story house and a high-end job. It's harder now because it's a three-person family and I have to control each individual, but it's oh-so-much fun... And yeah, when I outgrow this game I'll probably get the new versions, perhaps with some expansion packs. Orrr, I could get the new SimCity games, that are all pretty and 3D and with a plethora of new options and situations. Ahhh, simulation games - so good :-) And hey, I'm not the only one addicted to such games. John is addicted to Civilization III. I guess we're both dorks :-P hee hee hee :-)
