schork

just thought I needed to post something. can't sleep (again). I'm having one of those weeks. crappiness interspersed with periods of happiness. which isn't so bad, when you look at it all at once. school/work (or, schork, if you prefer) has been crazy this week. I am leaving for a conference this weekend and I have all of this stuff I have to get done before that. oh, and I have to prepare my talk for the conference as well. somehow, that got to the bottom of my to-do list so I only actually starting writing the slides this afternoon. but no worries, it'll be fine. also, I'm just so happy that I saved our project from near-death last week, I almost don't mind working on the stuff this week.

I can't believe July is more than half over. where did it all go?

happy birthday Jody. "we're sonic fucking death monkey!"

4th o' July pics

I put up some of my favorite photos from my crazy 4th of July adventure in Washington, DC on Flickr. they have an upload limit, so that's all that will be up there for a while. I will put some others on this blog also and I will also be putting together a movie of all the fun we had (surviving the storm, watching the fireworks, etc.).
here's the link: my Flickr 4th of July photos

the truth is out there

I just got back from seeing An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore's movie on global warming, with Jeremy David Cogan (for some reason, he wanted me to use his whole name). it was a surprisingly good and entertaining movie, and of course, very informative and educational. EVERYONE needs to go see it. as soon as possible. and bring a friend. and then see what you can do to be part of the solution. check out the website for ideas.

welcome Stephen!

Jen and Lynn had their baby last night! he's so big! and lots of hair. (and very very tired.) Jody and I went to go see them in the hospital today and little Stephen looked great (and Jen looked good too, especially considering she was in labor for like 30 something hours). so, we have a new member to our soccer team (well, in a few years anyway).

hot hot hot

I went home to LA for the weekend for my dad's birthday. it was actually kind of nice there compared to here, even though everyone in my family said it was awful. I was like, look it's 112 in phoenix, 94 and a bit muggy isn't bad at all. they didn't get it. anyway, after driving back last night, I was hoping to come home and just crash. but, of course, it's never that easy. the air conditioning in our apartment seemed to be non-functioning. the fan works and is blowing air, but it's not cold. it is currently 89 degrees inside my apartment! ick. it is a bit cooler in my room with the fan running, but it's still not great. ugh. they are going to try to fix it tonight. let's hope they can get it to work. I guess the only good news is that it's a little bit cooler outside today since it looks like the start of monsoon season. a bit of rain sounds good to me (even if accompanied by dust and wind). it's hot!

update: it is now fixed. hooray!

the I hate Bruce Arena fan club

um yeah. so I am going to blame two people for the outcome today: Bruce Arena for many many bad decisions and Landon Donovan for being a wanker and playing horribly (and then again Bruce Arena for letting him play horribly). so there.
considering all that, we played ok. there were a lot of good opportunities in the second half. but that penalty at the end of the first half really pissed me off. such a bad call. and I hate blaming refs for game outcomes (although, see my post on the last game). whatever. I am disappointed. we should have done better. but I am happy for Ghana. I think it's great that they advanced and proved everyone wrong about them. (and what happened to the Czech Republic? craziness.) anyway, the US is done with the world cup, but I am not. there are still many great games left to watch. and I will continue to watch my favorite sport throughout the tournament.

if only...

um yeah. so why is that no one else seems to care that the U.S. National Team tied Italy while playing a man down for half the game? (I had to convince people at work today that this was good news, after reminding them that we played a game over the weekend.) le sigh for sure. anyway, here's a hilarious article about our loss to the Czech Republic from The Onion, imagining quite a different world.

Devastated By U.S. World Cup Team's First-Round Loss, Nation Grinds To Halt

Taliesin West

so yesterday morning, Hwi, Angel, Angel's sister (who is visiting from Puerto Rico) and I went to see Taliesin West, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs. it houses his school of architecture among other things. it was really cool. we went on one of the 90 minute tours and saw pretty much everything there. our tour guide was very knowledgeable and explained all sorts of things. it was very interesting and I got lots of great pictures. here are my favorites.

aaargghh!

wow. what a game. that ref was ridiculous. I just still can't believe what happened. that last red card was totally insane. we should have been playing 10 men each, which would have made it a better game. but, still, I must say, I think it is great that we were able to pull off that tie against Italy playing a man down most of the game and having that ref hate us for some reason. he better hope he stays in Uruguay and never comes to the U.S. because there are some really upset people here. the good news is that a) we played well (when the ref let us) and b) there is a chance of making it to the next round IF we beat Ghan AND if Italy beats Czech Republic. now, considering the what happened in the Ghana/Czech game this morning, I have no clue how Thursday will play out. but needless to say, there will be two really interesting games to watch. go USA!!

They don't run!

so I couldn't really sleep last night. after reading a couple chapters of "How Soccer Explains the World: an (unlikely) theory of globalization" (which is very interesting) I decided to play with my new MacBook a bit; namely: iMovie. I remembered that I had this hilarious video clip from my trip to Puerto Rico last spring break with Katie and Angel and Adam. Katie wanted to chase some birds near this old church in San Juan, but something was not just right with the birds. anyway, here's the video (make sure your speakers are on). hope you enjoy it. :)

world cup

so, due to the magic of my dvr, I have been able to watch almost every single world cup game so far while only missing a small amount of work (luckily I can reschedule things to the afternoon. :) ). I must say, though, I was very disappointed by the US's appearance yesterday against the Czech Republic. although I figured we would lose this game (the Czechs are ranked 2nd right now), I really didn't think we would have such a poor showing. it was like they weren't even trying or something. I don't know. I just hope that they get their act together for the game against Italy on Saturday. we really need to win that game. and the one against Ghana after that. we'll see what happens. I can only hope.

soccer and physics

so, today while I was eating my lunch and reading my Physics Today magazine, I came across a short article that combined two of my favorite things: physics and soccer. if you have a subscription to PT, you can look at the article here: http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-59/iss-6/p26b.shtml

for those of you non-physics people, here is what it basically was about. it was titled, "Soccer obeys Bessel-function statistics", so right away I knew it was going to be good.
Metin Tolan, an experimental physicist at the University of Dortmund, did a study of about 34,000 professional soccer games and looked at number of goals scored and probability of winning based on this. "We approximated a soccer team by a radioactive source. A soccer team emits goals according to Poisson statistics." as it turns out, for soccer, a Bessel-function (a modified Bessel function results from summing over products of probabilities expressed as Poisson distributions) is a good fit for all the data. therefore, based on this and looking at simulations and past performance of teams, he says that Brazil has a 15% chance of winning this year's World Cup, and Germany a 10.5% chance. however, when factoring in home field advantage (which usually gives you 0.6 to 1 extra goal), Germany is moved up to a 33% chance.
we'll see what happens. the first game is this friday!

ursprache

the national spelling bee is so exciting. this is the first year it was on network primetime (normally I have to watch it on espn during the day). the top three finishers were all girls, including one canadian, and it was quite exciting. the winning word was ursprache (which she knew). some of the other interesting-sounding words from the final round were: tmesis, weltschmerz, tutoyer, izzat, and koine.

a new start

so the last few days have been absolutely crap. I spent all day sunday, and most of the day monday, tuesday, and today moving my stuff out of my old apartment into my new one. I had some friends helping me on sunday, when I had the u-haul truck and moved the heavy stuff and the furniture. the only good thing was that it was only 95 degrees this weekend, instead of the 110 it will be this coming weekend. ugh. anyway, it was pretty painful, but I managed through it. I finally finished cleaning and moving the last of it out today and am now trying to settle into the new place.

the spectacularly good news which is luckily overshadowing the crappiness of the past four days is that today, almost a week earlier than expected, my new MacBook showed up! it's soo beautiful! I love love love it. I also set up a wireless network in the new apartment so Hwi and I can use our laptops wherever. and it finally works. things are looking up.

so, I have a new apartment (and a new roommate!) and a new computer for a brand new start to the summer.

I hate moving. end of story.

I ordered my MacBook! I'm so excited. it probably won't be here for another week and a half though, so that kind of sucks. I went to the Apple store, but because I wanted to upgrade the hard drive (as well as the ram), they said I had to order it online. sadness. oh well. it will be here soon. hopefully by then, everything will be settled into my new apartment. I'm moving this weekend into a 2-bedroom with Hwi. hooray! it will be lots cheaper, closer to school, and more fun. hopefully the move goes smoothly. I gave myself lots of time, like almost five days, so there shouldn't be any stressing out or anything. I hate the process of moving (packing and all that stuff), but I think this time it will actually be alright.

the world cup starts in two weeks!!!! soooo excited!!

state of the thesis

today's PhD comic seems especially appropriate to me this summer.



although I don't actually have an outline, I do have an impressive amount of data (some of which has been partially analyzed). go me! hehe.


oh, and travelogue update: I couldn't sleep the other night, so I finally posted the rest of the pictures for my europe trip. the link is on the left column. enjoy!

let's see...what's new?

the season finale of Grey's Anatomy was soo good. I have gotten at least three other people addicted to the show in the last few weeks, so I feel really good about that. and, coincidentally, as it turns out (because I have season one on dvd and I am so smart), the actual hospital where they film the show is only a few blocks away from my dad's house in LA. it is an outpatient VA hospital and I used to drive by it all the time. no wonder it looked familiar! how cool is that?

I am moving in a little over a week to a 2-bedroom apartment - no more one bedroom for me. Hwi, one of the other grad students, is moving in with me, so that will be nice. it will be a lot cheaper, slightly closer to school, and not as quiet and lonely. so hooray for all that. it has been nice living in this apartment; it has been almost two years, which is the longest I've been living in only one place since 8th grade. crazy.

"school" is going well. I am deeply embedded in my summer research now, so that has been keeping me busy and interested.

yesterday was the final champions league game (european club soccer) of fc barcelona versus arsenal fc. and what a game it was. I only caught the last half, but it was probably the better half to see. first of all, it was pouring rain, and arsenal got a red card sometime in the first half so they were playing down a man the rest of the game. still, they managed to score and it was 1-0 when I turned it on. barcelona fought back hard and it was pretty even for most of the half. however, with about 15 minutes left, arsenal was getting tired and they let in two crazy goals in about four minutes. it was all downhill from there. the dynamic of the game totally changed and barcelona held the upper hand the rest of the way. it was such an exciting game to watch and it just made me sooo excited for the World Cup that is starting in a few weeks! the first US game is on June 12 (it's a Monday and the game is live at 9am, so you can be sure I'll be going into school late that day). hopefully we'll make it out of the group of death and into the round of 16. that would be awesome.

in other news, I'm going to buy a new computer once the move is finished. apple announced the new iBooks this week (it is now called the MacBook) and I can't wait! it looks so nice and I really need a new computer at home. my current dell laptop is almost four years old and is literally falling apart: one of the two hinges that connects the screen to the rest of the computer is no longer connected. I'm amazed it still works properly (although it did angrily beep at me yesterday. maybe it knows I'm replacing it). its hard drive is full and it is too slow for everything I want, so I am upgrading. I am going to get the 2.0 GHz white MacBook, but I'm going to upgrade the ram (to 1gb) and the hard drive memory (to 80gb) so it will be perfect. :)

zoom a little zoom

there is only one thing to say before I start this post. and that is to apologize to all my readers who do not share my nerdy tendencies. this post will lay bare all of my "science is awesome!", and "gee, that's neat" sort-of inclincations. so, sorry if you don't have these inclinations as well.

it all started yesterday morning as I was driving to one of the schools I was doing teachers observations at for my research project. I have been listening compulsively to NPR lately (maybe like the last six months), so I was tuned in as usual. Morning Edition was on, and there was this segment on a particular video blog (or vlog) called Rocket Boom. now, first of all, I was struck first because the vlog sounded hilarious and cool (in a real low-tech way). secondly, I was struck by the theme song of the vlog. it was stuck in my head the rest of the day.
when I got home last night, I looked up the vlog and watched a few webisodes which were quite good. however, I was still hung up on this song and I needed to find a way to get the mp3.

this afternoon, I did some more searching on the RocketBoom pages and found a link they had to the song {called "zoom a little zoom") and where (and who) it came from. it turns out that it is from some folk singer and it is part of a larger series of songs from the late 50's/early 60's called Singing Science. "Zoom a little zoom" is from the "space songs" album. so, I was super excited to be able to listen to (and download!) the song (it is now in the public domain). but, after looking at the rest of the songs on the album and the series I got even more excited. not only were there other songs like "The Ballad of Sir Isaac Newton", "It's a Scientific Fact", and "What is a Shooting Star?", but there is "Why does the Sun Shine?" which turns out is the original version that They Might Be Giants covered (and which I and the other astro grad students here have taken on as our theme song). needless to say, this was a majorly exciting find and after listening to the songs, I was crying I was laughing so hard. what a great afternoon!

James got married!

I spent about 16 hours in a car this weekend, but it was worth it. five of us drove to Socorro, New Mexico for our friend James's wedding. we made a couple stops on the way there, most notably in Pie Town (to have some lunch and, of course, some pie). we also drove by the VLA (Very Large Array) - a bunch of telescopes to you non-astro folks (they were in the movie Contact if that helps). the wedding itself was really pretty and nice. they had it in the background of a house that belonged to a friend of the family. the girl he married, Mirka, is from Slovakia and so they did the ceremony in both languages so her mother who was visiting would know what was happening. they also did a couple Slovakian rituals after the ceremony. one of them was really hilarious. Mirka smashed her champagne glass on a cement tile and then James had to clean it up. but he had to do it three times because each time she said it wasn't a good enough job and he had to do it again. we were cracking up. maybe you had to be there. the reception afterwards was lots of fun. there was some great food and plenty of wine and we all had a good time.
the drive back on sunday was fairly uneventful. I guess the important things to mention from the car rides was that I taught Katie how to knit on the way there and Hwi and Angel how to on the return trip. it definitely made the trip go by faster and it was fun too. they are hooked! (well, maybe not Angel - but he just needs to practice some more.) for some reason, Mike didn't feel like learning how to knit. hehe. I also got to use my brand new used polaroid camera that I picked up at the goodwill store last week for $4. what a deal!


in Pie Town, NM (notice Angel's new license plate)


the VLA telescopes


the happy couple


James cleaning up the mess Mirka made. hehe.


the five of us that made the trip: Mike, Hwi, me, Katie, and Angel


the girls and James


ah, look how pretty! hehe.


James and Angel being silly


Katie and Hwi being silly