Congratulations to all of the '07 undergrads, Williams or otherwise, who are undergrads no longer or not for very much longer. In lj-world, this is tolchocky, paul_stansifer, liviadrusila, brouhaha, idealforcolors, nightangelca, ojouchan, echowanjohn, and others whose educational status I have overlooked ( Read more... )

So Jack grows a Leonidas-style beard and starts popping pills like Dr. Gregory House. And he's all "I'm sick of this life, I just want to scream . . . how did this happen to me ( Read more... )

In the same vein as that video where the kiwi (spoilers!) dies, I present you LongCat's Song.

In a shocking display of financial indiscipline, I've ordered all of BuffyAt work, I'm building a set of programs in a very architectural manner. That's my idealized narrative. I'm really spending most of the time tracking down memory leaks (not supposed ( Read more... )

So. My little fiefdom within Johnson & Johnson finally decided to hire me. Providentially, the start date was February 13th, my birthday. Along with the nice signing bonus and feeling of affirmation, I got several stacks of paperwork to deal with. But these stacks, when properly filled out, give me cool things like medical insurance, which I've ( Read more... )

I've already mentioned, complained, and read too much into my folks initially bringing me my textbooks and leaving the fiction at home. This was remedied some weeks back when Mother and Sister came out here in the new Prius (!), its trunk stuffed with Christmas presents and the books I had been missing.

Neal Stephenson's The Confusion has been ( Read more... )

When I speak, I tend to use too few words. Alternatively, I may just not be structuring my thoughts and sentences in ways that make immediate sense. The meaning is all there but they tend to be hard to parse. A third possibility is that my speech may not be clear or, even more woefully corrigible, loud enough. For any or all of these reasons, and ( Read more... )

I look nervous when I present, I've been told by those I work with. And present to. I spoke on Thurday to about a dozen of the folks who do analytic and pharmaceutical chemistry. The subject was a new Design of Experiment scheme that cuts--inserting in its place computation and modeling--the more traditional stage of actually thinking about which ( Read more... )

Part of working, I guess, is being hit up for donations to the United Way. The 1-for-1 donation matching would actually be very nice but it is presently a moot point, for I am still a contract worker. But I am getting cool stuff done, so there should be every reason for them to take me on permanently when the contract lapses ( Read more... )

International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We'll see how this one meshes with work.

Assuming I get my ass into gear and onto the bus, I'll make it to the parmacokinetics talk at 8:00a. Then a full day of doing stuff until the "running club" meets at 5:15p. Must find out what is going on with that.

Captain's Log, updated.

Work starts tomorrow. Don't know what to say about that. I made the 19-mile round trip to Lexington today on the Minuteman Bikeway to see how that would work out. At a decent but far from heroic pace, I got there in about forty minutes. Lacking a nicer bike, I think I'll stick to the bus but it's nice to know I have an alternative ( Read more... )