Control for smilers can't be bought
Much has happened since last I wrote, I suppose. Two weeks? Indeed. I was so good for a while there... All in all, I'm very happy. And keeping busy. The two are highly correlated, which leads to less posting.
There was the bowling tournament, then a week of relative productivity: During the week, hubcap_annie and I went to a discussion about UR's relationship with the bus system, I had cookies with Jeff Binder, I spliced up a huge wav file of myself, KK & I bought a LOT of alcohol in preparation for the party, then the weekend began.
A weekend of decadence: I got to the library at 4 PM for a 6 PM party. Why? To set up. I had no idea what this would entail, but it ended up being me moving around a bunch of tables & chairs as I saw fit, then distributing wine on said tables, again at my discretion. Fun, considering, uh, that was what KK & I had just done to our place the night before. The Wine & Cheese party was fun -- got to see lots of people I only really see at GOG&such events, meet a few new ones, and generally mill about. Then our party (NSFW?) was also quite a hit with the party-goers. gnothi_se_auton arrived around midnight, and that's where things got hazy... We way over-bought on the booze, which is fine because we had 7 people (a new record) sleeping at our place Fri & Sat night, and Saturday was D-Day. It's not like it goes bad or anything.
Oh, D-Day. I kind of underdid it this year, which was fine. Amelia was in town for a photo shoot. We tooled around town a bit, exploring Historic Houseparts (I'd never been! SO COOL!) and The Village Gate, particularly the vintage store and The Bop Shop. The Bop Shop is one of those record stores out of the movies, where you walk in, and they really know their stuff. It's less like Record & Tape Traders, more like High Fidelity. We had a good time chatting with the employees, as we'd been discussing how I don't explore enough things in life, and when I talk to people I haven't talked to in a while (hi photofigment!) I like to inquire about what media they've been enjoying of late. So we asked them "What should we be listening to?" They spouted off about a dozen names of bands national & local that all seem really interesting, from surf-rock to free jazz. We had to scoot due to the photo shoot, but I'm definitely going back there. While Amelia & Mike (not a Mike we previously knew & I'd link to his site IF AMELIA EVER GOT BACK TO MEEEE) did their thing, I cleaned up the house a bit and got myself ready for D-Day. Toot toot, good times. It was way better weather than last year and it felt so college, more college than a lot of similar circumstances at good ol' Johnny Hop. At one point, I was drinking a Milwaukee Best Light that I'd gotten from the basement of the SAM house, while listening to Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" blasting out of another house's speakers. There were lots of things I wanted to take note of, but didn't because I don't own a digital camera, and I was generally unprepared, in terms of notepads or alcohol. Oh well. Lots of people walk like they're super-cool and have something to prove, but that usually means they're just big tools. Shrug. A good time, overall, even if I wasn't drunk really at any point. Dinner at Beale Street was quite an event: I almost NEVER am willing to wait an hour for a table somewhere, but gnothi_se_auton and Meghan and I just hung around because we didn't really have anywhere better to go.
Sunday was breakfast at Mt Hope Diner with a huge wonderful crowd of people, then the flea market, then baking awesome cookies which I took to the Ling department potluck. Our floor hockey team was in the tournament that night, and we won the semi-final game when the other team failed to show up. Yowza. Interesting side bit: in the previous week's game, which was fairly rough, one of our players mashed up his finger. He got it checked out a day or two later only to discover that not only had he broken his fingers, but there was a tumor in his hand. Needless to say, he did not join us for the final game. (He'll be fine. It's not uncommon, apparently. Yikes.) Despite my last-minute goal, we lost the final game by 1 point. Grah.
During the week, I GOT OZ UP & RUNNING. WOOH!!!! I collected data from Thursday to Saturday after a 40-second phone meeting with Dick, in which I mentioned not only my extreme paranoia about the not-yet-extant-data (he oddly didn't seem to mind the lack) but also that I'd be out of town when Dick got back. Here's my dilemma now: I'm to be looking at 4-5 subjects from this week, then I have one scheduled tomorrow, and another 4 on deck for sometime this week. But I don't really want to schedule those 4 until I've looked at this stuff really well in case I need to do a complete overhaul, and looking will take at least the next two days, and probably part of the time I'm with my bro this week -- he defends his thesis on Wednesday, so I'm popping over for that. Apologies, Boston folk, but I won't have much time to hang out while I'm there. I'll be back at least once this summer. Back to Oz: But if I don't schedule them now, they might scamper home for the summer and subjects are scarce-ish then, right? Eek. Mayhaps I should stop LJing and start Excelling. Somehow there seem like very few hours left in today, yet there are certainly at least 8-10 before I go to bed. And very little's on my agenda tomorrow, except for segmenting the Oz stimuli for a proper detailed anlysis plus a subject whom I foolishly scheduled during the Ling progress talks. suomifrikki, thanks for the reminder on that AND for the free food heads-up. I'll make it over to Lattimore, but probably only for the 1-2 slot.
In other life news, I'm taking a pottery class at the MAG and bought a yoga mat. Both are things I've been kind of curious about for a while, and recently decided to just go for it. I went to the URMC Fitness Center for yoga class with KK's coworkers for two weeks and enjoyed it enough that a membership is in order, not just sneaking in. Also, I'll be buying a new, laptop computer of the Wintel variety in the next few weeks. A brand-new computer! All mine! Thank you, tax refund & grading.
That's what I've been up to. Springtime means cleaning & changing of things, but I haven't quite gotten around to it all yet. My winter sheets are still on the bed. I fully intend to get rid of a lot of stuff in my closet via Goodwill or a clothing exchange party (a la neverdreamofme but I can't find mention on her blog). Maybe next weekend... But the weather's been nice enough that I can bike-commute some days. 7 minutes from Meliora to home ain't bad, but I'm somehow sure that that's quicker than the allez- trip. Spring also means allergies. BOO HISS SNOT GALORE.
Bets on what I'll get done today?: cooking/baking, dinner at Liz&Edward's, Oz analysis, spring cleaning
There was the bowling tournament, then a week of relative productivity: During the week, hubcap_annie and I went to a discussion about UR's relationship with the bus system, I had cookies with Jeff Binder, I spliced up a huge wav file of myself, KK & I bought a LOT of alcohol in preparation for the party, then the weekend began.
A weekend of decadence: I got to the library at 4 PM for a 6 PM party. Why? To set up. I had no idea what this would entail, but it ended up being me moving around a bunch of tables & chairs as I saw fit, then distributing wine on said tables, again at my discretion. Fun, considering, uh, that was what KK & I had just done to our place the night before. The Wine & Cheese party was fun -- got to see lots of people I only really see at GOG&such events, meet a few new ones, and generally mill about. Then our party (NSFW?) was also quite a hit with the party-goers. gnothi_se_auton arrived around midnight, and that's where things got hazy... We way over-bought on the booze, which is fine because we had 7 people (a new record) sleeping at our place Fri & Sat night, and Saturday was D-Day. It's not like it goes bad or anything.
Oh, D-Day. I kind of underdid it this year, which was fine. Amelia was in town for a photo shoot. We tooled around town a bit, exploring Historic Houseparts (I'd never been! SO COOL!) and The Village Gate, particularly the vintage store and The Bop Shop. The Bop Shop is one of those record stores out of the movies, where you walk in, and they really know their stuff. It's less like Record & Tape Traders, more like High Fidelity. We had a good time chatting with the employees, as we'd been discussing how I don't explore enough things in life, and when I talk to people I haven't talked to in a while (hi photofigment!) I like to inquire about what media they've been enjoying of late. So we asked them "What should we be listening to?" They spouted off about a dozen names of bands national & local that all seem really interesting, from surf-rock to free jazz. We had to scoot due to the photo shoot, but I'm definitely going back there. While Amelia & Mike (not a Mike we previously knew & I'd link to his site IF AMELIA EVER GOT BACK TO MEEEE) did their thing, I cleaned up the house a bit and got myself ready for D-Day. Toot toot, good times. It was way better weather than last year and it felt so college, more college than a lot of similar circumstances at good ol' Johnny Hop. At one point, I was drinking a Milwaukee Best Light that I'd gotten from the basement of the SAM house, while listening to Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69" blasting out of another house's speakers. There were lots of things I wanted to take note of, but didn't because I don't own a digital camera, and I was generally unprepared, in terms of notepads or alcohol. Oh well. Lots of people walk like they're super-cool and have something to prove, but that usually means they're just big tools. Shrug. A good time, overall, even if I wasn't drunk really at any point. Dinner at Beale Street was quite an event: I almost NEVER am willing to wait an hour for a table somewhere, but gnothi_se_auton and Meghan and I just hung around because we didn't really have anywhere better to go.
Sunday was breakfast at Mt Hope Diner with a huge wonderful crowd of people, then the flea market, then baking awesome cookies which I took to the Ling department potluck. Our floor hockey team was in the tournament that night, and we won the semi-final game when the other team failed to show up. Yowza. Interesting side bit: in the previous week's game, which was fairly rough, one of our players mashed up his finger. He got it checked out a day or two later only to discover that not only had he broken his fingers, but there was a tumor in his hand. Needless to say, he did not join us for the final game. (He'll be fine. It's not uncommon, apparently. Yikes.) Despite my last-minute goal, we lost the final game by 1 point. Grah.
During the week, I GOT OZ UP & RUNNING. WOOH!!!! I collected data from Thursday to Saturday after a 40-second phone meeting with Dick, in which I mentioned not only my extreme paranoia about the not-yet-extant-data (he oddly didn't seem to mind the lack) but also that I'd be out of town when Dick got back. Here's my dilemma now: I'm to be looking at 4-5 subjects from this week, then I have one scheduled tomorrow, and another 4 on deck for sometime this week. But I don't really want to schedule those 4 until I've looked at this stuff really well in case I need to do a complete overhaul, and looking will take at least the next two days, and probably part of the time I'm with my bro this week -- he defends his thesis on Wednesday, so I'm popping over for that. Apologies, Boston folk, but I won't have much time to hang out while I'm there. I'll be back at least once this summer. Back to Oz: But if I don't schedule them now, they might scamper home for the summer and subjects are scarce-ish then, right? Eek. Mayhaps I should stop LJing and start Excelling. Somehow there seem like very few hours left in today, yet there are certainly at least 8-10 before I go to bed. And very little's on my agenda tomorrow, except for segmenting the Oz stimuli for a proper detailed anlysis plus a subject whom I foolishly scheduled during the Ling progress talks. suomifrikki, thanks for the reminder on that AND for the free food heads-up. I'll make it over to Lattimore, but probably only for the 1-2 slot.
In other life news, I'm taking a pottery class at the MAG and bought a yoga mat. Both are things I've been kind of curious about for a while, and recently decided to just go for it. I went to the URMC Fitness Center for yoga class with KK's coworkers for two weeks and enjoyed it enough that a membership is in order, not just sneaking in. Also, I'll be buying a new, laptop computer of the Wintel variety in the next few weeks. A brand-new computer! All mine! Thank you, tax refund & grading.
That's what I've been up to. Springtime means cleaning & changing of things, but I haven't quite gotten around to it all yet. My winter sheets are still on the bed. I fully intend to get rid of a lot of stuff in my closet via Goodwill or a clothing exchange party (a la neverdreamofme but I can't find mention on her blog). Maybe next weekend... But the weather's been nice enough that I can bike-commute some days. 7 minutes from Meliora to home ain't bad, but I'm somehow sure that that's quicker than the allez- trip. Spring also means allergies. BOO HISS SNOT GALORE.
Bets on what I'll get done today?: cooking/baking, dinner at Liz&Edward's, Oz analysis, spring cleaning