Crazy month closing up
It has been one crazy couple of weeks, and I am slowly coming out from underwater. My return to class after break was reasonably sure-footed, but I stumbled pretty soon after, and fell a bit behind in things I was hoping to have done. I've fallen a bit further in the following week, but I think I'm digging my way out of the hole -- give the two exams I need to this week, and I'll be done.
As for the parental visit, it was a good time and far less stressful than I feared. We went to all sorts of places I wouldn't go to on my own, which was most excellent.
Friday we hung out in Louisville: it was a pretty warm day and we went down to the river to see how things had flooded over the past week. Did I mention it rained a lot in the preceding week? We'd walked along the river on their previous visit, and we couldn't even find the path we walked on... but we did see the top 3 inches of a trash can which we figured was on the path. Friday evening involved some straightening up around the house and dinner at Impellizzeri's, whose pizza is as incredible, and as heavy, as advertised.
We spent Saturday touring the northern end of the bourbon trail, sampling Four Roses and Woodford Reserve, and getting a bottle of excellent rye from Wild Turkey (who do have high-end products). A distillery tour is an excellent experience, because it's an interesting atmosphere with a variety of wonderful smells and some downright fascinating processes. That was a lot of fun, and yielded several hundred pictures of bubbling yeast vats.
Sunday we drove down to Mammoth Cave. We got to go on the most commonly attended intermediate tour -- it ran regularly, and was a two-hour trek from the New Entrance through narrow passages and dry caverns for much of its length, and the shaping of the dry cave was interesting in its own way, with slab heaps and broken openings, but the real beauty was at the end in the Frozen Niagara chamber, with vividly carved wet formations. It was all very cool, exciting, and a nice physical challenge, and even our guide wandering into unnecessarily thorny babbling about a creator and Jesus couldn't diminish it. We'd hoped to d a self-guided tour from the historical entrance, but for some reason (possibly light attendance on Easter) the historical entrance was closed, so we settled for walking down to the styx River spring and along the banks of the Green River. It was a nice if cool day, and we had a quite excellent walk.
Monday was when I ran out of ideas, so after breakfast we cruised rather aimlessly in Audobon Park and Parkway Village for a while. The folks are urging me to actually buy property, and I'm slowly coming around to their point of view. So we spent some time just seeing what was about (and there's a lot of affordable stuff there), and then retired for boardgaming, tea, and bourbon to just while away the afternoon and get to spend time together. Monday dinner was at the ever excellent Palermo Viejo, which I can always count on for one excellent dinner.
And Tuesday brought us back to real life, and me back to trying to catch up with expectations. I mostly succeeded, although I flubed somewhat on preparing a practice exam for 387. Basically, I spent the whole week in catch-up mode, and just barely had time to refactor a talk for the Kentucky Section MAA meeting. Which brings me to this weekend's particular distraction.
So, KYMAA was down in Bowling Green. I carpooled down with Tim, a grad in our department, and Adam, a NExT colleague at Bellarmine. We got in in plenty of time to check into our hotels and get to the first talks. I got to know a very eclectic collection of folks from around Kentucky: Centre College had an unexpectedly large contingent, as did Morehead State. There was a nice healthy posse of NExTers there: me, Adam, Ryan from Transy, Robin from Morehead, and Chris down from Evansville (which isn't KY, but we like him anyways). I basically got to hang out and smalltalk with a nice intimate group -- there were about 150 of us all-told. I even got to sit in on some good talks. I have gotten my name and face out there, which is definitely worthwhile, and my own talk went well if a bit rushed (it was refactored from a 20-minute talk, and there was a bit too much stuff in it). There were people there and questions, which is all I can ask for.
Also, I've increased my knowledge of Bellarmine faculty from 1/6 of the department to 5/6 in the past month. Yay! Apparently UofL and Bellarmine don't communicate much these days but perhaps we should.
Anyways, that's my last two weeks. Hopefully April will be calmer, although there's the looming spectre of potential property ownership to be contended with. Also, taxes.
As for the parental visit, it was a good time and far less stressful than I feared. We went to all sorts of places I wouldn't go to on my own, which was most excellent.
Friday we hung out in Louisville: it was a pretty warm day and we went down to the river to see how things had flooded over the past week. Did I mention it rained a lot in the preceding week? We'd walked along the river on their previous visit, and we couldn't even find the path we walked on... but we did see the top 3 inches of a trash can which we figured was on the path. Friday evening involved some straightening up around the house and dinner at Impellizzeri's, whose pizza is as incredible, and as heavy, as advertised.
We spent Saturday touring the northern end of the bourbon trail, sampling Four Roses and Woodford Reserve, and getting a bottle of excellent rye from Wild Turkey (who do have high-end products). A distillery tour is an excellent experience, because it's an interesting atmosphere with a variety of wonderful smells and some downright fascinating processes. That was a lot of fun, and yielded several hundred pictures of bubbling yeast vats.
Sunday we drove down to Mammoth Cave. We got to go on the most commonly attended intermediate tour -- it ran regularly, and was a two-hour trek from the New Entrance through narrow passages and dry caverns for much of its length, and the shaping of the dry cave was interesting in its own way, with slab heaps and broken openings, but the real beauty was at the end in the Frozen Niagara chamber, with vividly carved wet formations. It was all very cool, exciting, and a nice physical challenge, and even our guide wandering into unnecessarily thorny babbling about a creator and Jesus couldn't diminish it. We'd hoped to d a self-guided tour from the historical entrance, but for some reason (possibly light attendance on Easter) the historical entrance was closed, so we settled for walking down to the styx River spring and along the banks of the Green River. It was a nice if cool day, and we had a quite excellent walk.
Monday was when I ran out of ideas, so after breakfast we cruised rather aimlessly in Audobon Park and Parkway Village for a while. The folks are urging me to actually buy property, and I'm slowly coming around to their point of view. So we spent some time just seeing what was about (and there's a lot of affordable stuff there), and then retired for boardgaming, tea, and bourbon to just while away the afternoon and get to spend time together. Monday dinner was at the ever excellent Palermo Viejo, which I can always count on for one excellent dinner.
And Tuesday brought us back to real life, and me back to trying to catch up with expectations. I mostly succeeded, although I flubed somewhat on preparing a practice exam for 387. Basically, I spent the whole week in catch-up mode, and just barely had time to refactor a talk for the Kentucky Section MAA meeting. Which brings me to this weekend's particular distraction.
So, KYMAA was down in Bowling Green. I carpooled down with Tim, a grad in our department, and Adam, a NExT colleague at Bellarmine. We got in in plenty of time to check into our hotels and get to the first talks. I got to know a very eclectic collection of folks from around Kentucky: Centre College had an unexpectedly large contingent, as did Morehead State. There was a nice healthy posse of NExTers there: me, Adam, Ryan from Transy, Robin from Morehead, and Chris down from Evansville (which isn't KY, but we like him anyways). I basically got to hang out and smalltalk with a nice intimate group -- there were about 150 of us all-told. I even got to sit in on some good talks. I have gotten my name and face out there, which is definitely worthwhile, and my own talk went well if a bit rushed (it was refactored from a 20-minute talk, and there was a bit too much stuff in it). There were people there and questions, which is all I can ask for.
Also, I've increased my knowledge of Bellarmine faculty from 1/6 of the department to 5/6 in the past month. Yay! Apparently UofL and Bellarmine don't communicate much these days but perhaps we should.
Anyways, that's my last two weeks. Hopefully April will be calmer, although there's the looming spectre of potential property ownership to be contended with. Also, taxes.