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May 16, 2005
Off to Italy
Yeah, my vacation is finally here. My mother and I are heading out on our Italy Escape today where we will be visiting with an old friend, Heather and her husband. This trip is going to be really strange because on one hand we are doing the 4star luxury trip and on the other we are backpacking. Case in point, thanks to copious frequent flyier miles accumulated by my mother and her American Express card we are flying first class. On the other hand though because of my budget, we are mostly staying at youth hostels along the way. It should make for good stories.
This trip will also be my first only digital experience. I hope that I do not regret it.
Ciao for now.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:39 AM | Comments (1)
May 13, 2005
All the responsibility with no authority
Yes, this is the absolute worst combination. You have all of the authority for making something happen, yet you have either no or, as in my case, insufficient authority to actually make anything happen.
I have the responsibility for making sure this experiment gets run, so that my undergrads have something to do, yet I do not have the authority to make Kiki give me her password, nor to compell the IT guys to give me access before I leave for my trip.
I have the responsibility for registering for a conference on time, yet I do not have the authority to make the secretary here pay for it out of my advisor's account.
Of course if the person with the authority was due back any time soon, this would not be a problem. Unfortunately, she is not so we are essentially stuck.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 12, 2005
Company
Brian and I don't get much company. I guess it is not only the Seattle curse, so when a friend of mine from highschool said he and his fiance were driving through Atlanta and needed a place to crash for the night, I of course said, yes of course they could stay. Naturally then I forgot to write it down and promptly forgot all about it until they called me from the GA border. So wiki wiki Brian and I cleaned house (which we'd been meaning to do for a while).
It was nice to see Ryan and to meet his fiance, Sarah. They are on their way to another wedding in Texas, and along the way are stopping at just about everyone's place they can think of. In the back of their car were 3 bride's maids' dresses -- one for Sarah and two for Sarah's bride's maids'. Craziness.
In other news I'm still waiting to hear back from Kiki with her passwords. I think it is time to go beg the system administrators.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Roadblocks
I hate roadblocks, not just in the literal sense. I also get frustrated/annoyed when I've psyched myself up to do something and then I find that for some reason, like lack of a password, equipment inavailablity, network outage, etc that I cannot do what I intended. Today is one of those days. I have gotten myself all geared up to start tinkering with Kiki's experimental set up to make sure that I feel it is ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public, and of course what do I find but that all of her files are locked safely under the protection of her local account. GRR and Sigh.
So I've just kind of been treading water all morning doing lots of little things that needed to get done while I wait for our IT department to unlock the account. Of course I could just email Kiki and get the password directly right? Well not exactly because I only have her GT email address -- which is no longer valid.
I'm in this positin with a lot of other projects right now -- waiting for either data or a reply from someone. So unless someone responds soon, I'll be doing a lot of clerical tasks this afternoon.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)
May 06, 2005
Graduation
This weekend is graduation and because everyone will be in town, my social calendar is actually busy. I have a cook out tomorrow afternoon, a party tomorrow evening, and a dinner on Sunday evening. If the weather cooperates as expected, this should be a great weekend.
For those of you who haven't noticed I've posted a new gallery with pictures of Steven before he left.
Oh and has anyone else recently used Am*azon's super saver shipping and found that it now takes upwards of 3 weeks to get your stuff? I'm really upset about this.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:47 AM | Comments (2)
May 05, 2005
So I made a list...
I am notorious for making lists. I guess I just like the feeling of accomplishing things, or maybe it is because my memory is going, but I make lists a lot. So when I begant thinking about this summer and all the stuff I had packed into it I noticed that I may have been overly ambitious about this summer. Here's a snippet of the list:
Read the dozen or so papers sitting in my to-be-read pile
Finish my stats analysis of the data I collected in the fall
Run an experiment with 2 undergraduate "helpers"
Analyze the data from this experiment
Study for my comprehensive exams in the fall
Observe operations at the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, VA
Analyze the Herndon Observations
Take a Design of Experiments class
Write up my literature review
Polish my conference paper and submit it by 15 June
Create and submit my conference presentation by 15 June
Coordinate the statistical analysis of our Big Sim project
And on and on and on...
I'm really looking forward to my Italy trip, but I am always thinking of things that I need to remember to get. So much so that I think I need to start carying a pencil and pen with me everywhere I go.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:12 AM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2005
Winding Down & Winding Up
So the semester is over -- well almost. I still have one outstanding assignment. This is normally my favorite time of the semester, when everything is slowly winding down and everyone allows themselve to breath just a little bit.
Unfortunately my normally happy time has been interrupted by work. Ack. Yes graduate students are actually expected to continue working even after the semester ends, and what is even worse we are expected to continue working on something from (gasp) the previous semester. So as my semester is winding down, the next one is simultaneously ramping up. So I think I'm actually loosing ground to my to-do list.
Nothing much else to report. I think Sarah is going to stop in some time this weekend, if she has a spare moment, as are number of other friends of ours who are in town for the graduation on Saturday. I pitty all of them because they have to sit through a marathon combined graduation ceremony at the Georgia Dome. Bring a book!
Posted by kfeigh at 10:32 AM | Comments (2)
May 03, 2005
May Already?
Funny how when you are busy you can look up and suddenly wonder where all the time went. That happened to me last Friday when I was paying a bill on line and I noticed that I had more money than I should have... Ah, I must have gotten paid ... that means this is the last business day of the month ... what month is it? ... wow, May already.
So yes my spring semester is almost over. I have one assignment left (which is an illegal assignment, but I'll ignore that for now) In other news Steve is in the middle east as I type hopefully enjoying the dust, dirt, and hot weather. He'll be there for about a year, so if anyone wants his address to send stuff along just drop me a line and I'll hand it out.
I'm beginning to be able to think about my upcoming italy trip. I'm very excited to be going back. I hope the weather cooperates as much as it did last time, and that the Dollar continues to gain on the Euro.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:38 AM | Comments (1)