Another day in my life
So yesterday my boss told me he wouldn't be in today. As the powers-that-be have yet to give me a U of M "unique name" I still don't have a computer account there, and thought it would be useless to go in. He said that the MCTP (Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics, of which he is a part, so I guess I am too for the summer) office should have a guest login that I could use though, and I should go in at least for a few hours to begin to teach myself IDL, which is the math program/programming language that I'll be doing most of my work in this summer. Other than that, my assignment was to continue reading the stuff he gave me Monday: a couple of scientific papers that help form the background of what I'll be doing, a webpage that I'll be getting lots of data off of, and a book on Unix, because he's a Windows-hater and ever machine runs some version of the system (Linux, SunOS, etc.)
So I figured I'd get up this morning, read what he had assigned me in the Unix book so I could navigate the system, and head in for the afternoon and start working though the user manual for IDL. Well, the first part went off great. I mean, I got up (and 8:00 isn't bad for a day when I have no set time schedule, as any of you who know me should be aware). Started to read this book. The preface definitely says "this book should not be used in place of a good beginner's tutorial on Unix." The rest of the book basically consists of headings, lists of commands that fall under those headings, and examples. My mom definitely came back from having lunch with friends to find me asleep, still sitting up, book still open. Yes, it was that interesting a read.
So I walked to work, got there a little after 2:00 (later than I had planned on, due to my unintended nap). Went down to the MCTP office, they gave me the guest computer login, no problem. Went to the computer lab that I was told to work in (I have keys for it, I love it) and logged into one of the computers. Puttered around with it for a bit, and found that it really wasn't very difficult to navigate; the Unix inner workings of the system were masked by a user interface the resembled a Mac - that is, quick tour of the help file let me navigate the whole computer without trouble. Basically, my morning reading the boring book was wasted.
The problem was, I couldn't find IDL. Typed the name into the command prompt (which I thought I remembered Prof. Evrard telling me to do), looked in the applications, did a local search for it, browsed through the applications on the network; switched computers once and did it again. Nada. So I went and found another student who arrived this week and has been teaching himself IDL. (I've already forgotten his name. Again.) He said he just had to type it into the command prompt, but he was using a Linux machine, not a Sun. He left, I puttered a little more, then I realized there was a Linux machine sitting in the corner of the lab. I tried to login to it. It didn't work.
Went back to the MCTP office. The lady there had no idea why it wouldn't work. She sent me down to OCS (Office of Computer Services, or something like that) on the second floor (I work on the third). They said they weren't in charge of those computers, I should go talk to "Alexey on the fourth floor." Wandered the fourth floor for a while. No Alexey.
Went back to OCS. Someone new was there, and they said that I should be looking for Alexey Batrachenko (a last name is helpful), who was in charge of the MCTP computers (a job title, even more helpful) and who, as thus, same as me, worked on the third floor (ah, there's the ticket!).
Well.
I found Alexey this time. Told him my problem. He frowned for a minute then followed me down the hall to the computer lab. He has no idea who the Linux computer belongs to; not the MCTP, so he can't help there. After searching for IDL on one of the Sun systems, he also concluded that it wasn't there. He said he could install it, but it would take a fair amount of time so I should make sure with Prof. Gus that there isn't something else I should be doing first. As you might recall, he wasn't in today.
So I left. Walked home.
Positives:
I'm getting a good amount of exercise, because I've been walking from my house to campus and back each day. It takes about half an hour per direction when I have a schedule to keep.
The weather has been nice, so the walks have been enjoyable
Washtenaw Dairy is right along the path I walk. Ice cream makes any day better. At least any warm day.
Watched the Smallville Season 3 Finale tonight. It really wasn't all that exciting. I mean, it was important, everything changed and it left you wondering how they're going to get things back for the next season. But it didn't leave me on the edge of my seat shouting "No!" at the TV for it's placement of the end of the show because I needed to know what happened, like some season finale's in the past have, in this show and others. Oh well.
Anyway back to reading the boring book because I've been assigned specific stuff.