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May 31, 2006
Learning new things
I learn new things every day. These are, for the most part, strange little snippets of marginal value life information about, say, my ability to type with a brace on my right index finger, or what my office mate is actually working on. Odd things like that. Yesterday I learned how to make Word insert a non-breaking space. This is especially useful if you have a p value that you'd like to display like (p < 0.001). You don't want the word processor to do something like this (p
< 0.001)
For the longest time I thought this was an impossibility (or at least the help feature would lead you to believe so), but I now know that if you push ctrl+shift+space Word will give you a non-breaking space.
In other news I see the doc again today to see if my finger is sufficiently healed that I can remove my brace... Finger's crossed as it is getting annoying not being able to hit m's reliably.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:08 AM | Comments (9)
May 22, 2006
Hiking
Becca and Sarah came to visit this weekend and we went up to Unicoi State Park and hiked up to Anna Ruby falls and back. It was a good workout. In all I think we did about 10 miles and about 1,000 feet of up and another 1,000 feet of down as it was an out and back trail. On the way back though a small thunder cell came over us and things got dark and wet -- not overly wet, as none of us donned any kind of rain gear, but enough to leave the trail slippery. Well at one point I slipped and landed wong on my right index finger. It turns out that I actually fractured a small piece off of the middle finger bone. So now I am typing fairly successfully with a splint on my finger it is very amusing. I am having the most trouble with the ms and ns.
Sarah took lots of pictures so if you want to hear more head to their blogs.
Posted by kfeigh at 11:14 AM | Comments (5165)
May 19, 2006
Just me and Lee
Yes, yesterday the final member of what was my "lab" when I began here 2.3 years ago finished up his Master's thesis and left. So now I am the only one left. Well actuall there is Lee (not his real name, but since as he stated there are no other Korean's in the lab, we can call him Lee). Leeis a quiet, polite Korean man. Unfortunately Lee does not talk much, probably cannot understand a word I say, and works primarily on control theory. None of these qualities is especially endearing or useful to me. As a senior graduate student I'm supposed to have at least one or two junior lab mates to help proof read my papers, to bounce ideas off of (this of course works both ways). Instead I have Lee. It's not his fault, but it will be a lonely summer in the office.
I guess the good news it that I'll only have to share my supervisor with one other person this summer :)
Posted by kfeigh at 08:41 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
Who do I look like
So Becca found this 3D face recognition software. In an attempt to avoid work, I tried it out. The good news is that I don't look like any men. It claims that I look like the following celebrities:
Tia Carrera 66%
Jennifer Aniston 66%
Geena Davis 64%
And a few others... Odd. OK, back to work now.
Oh, and updating the my visited countries list:
Posted by kfeigh at 02:04 PM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2006
Life moves on
Yes, well since coming back from Dubai on a high note, things in my life have taken a decided turn for the worse relationship wise. Nothing has been decided yet, and I am incredibly greatful to all of my friends who have charged to my support/rescue.
It may have taken a crisis, but at least Becca is finally coming down to visit. We are tentatively planning on heading up to NE Georgia to go hiking, where I can finally test out my new trekking poles. If the weather holds it should be perfect hiking weather.
Posted by kfeigh at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)
May 13, 2006
Back from Dubai
Yes, I actually got back in the country on Thursday morning, but it took me a few more hours before I got back to Atlanta Thursday evening. The conference was great! It was amazing how friendly and helpful eveyone was considering that the vast majority of people there were either from airlines (which are in competition with each other) and venders (who are also in competition with each other). The academics were decidely outnumbered. Which is also why the converstation was probably not terribly stilted. ;)
I've posted pictures in the gallery. We had two main excursions, one "river" cruise and one sand "bashing" expidition into the desert dunes in four by four toyotas. I was facinated by the patterns in the sand and consequently took lots of photos. After the bashing we had dinner out in the desert, complete with camel rides, hena tatoos and belly dancing.
The entire time I was there I probably saw a total of 3 actual UAE citizens. They currently only make up around 11% of the entire population, which leaves the whole place feeling much more asian than middle eastern. It was fairly soulless, but the airline, Emirates, is now my favorite airline. I had over 500 different on-demand entertainment choices. I caught up on the last 8 months of movies I never went to see.
Oh, and for my Houston friends, yes there is a place on earth hotter and more humid than where you live.
I've gotten lots of offers to visit different airline operational control centers around the contry. So hopefully I'll be getting a chance to see you guys in both Houston and Seattle.
Posted by kfeigh at 04:58 PM | Comments (2)
May 03, 2006
Catching Up
OK, since last time I posted I've travelled home under the guise of attending a conference at UVA. The conference was pretty good considering it was a student conference in systems engineering. My main purpose there was to smoose with some of the faculty there in an effort to wrangle a job interview. UVA just sent out an email stating that they were hiring tenure track faculty in their systems and information engineering dept -- this is where my specialty falls now.
I think I made a good impression on the human factors faculty. Unfortunately, the dean seems to be messing around with them and no one -- even the school chair is sure if they actually have money to hire this year. This is OK with me since if they hire for next year, that fits in better with my timeline.
I spent the rest of the weekend at home, admiring the new kitchen. Very nice, but still not quite done. It is amazing how half-way some people attempt to solve problems. What is more amazing is after catching these half-way attempts time and time again, that the builder still seems to think that he can get away with it.
I'm back in Atlanta now, having caught a cold/come down with a cold on Monday. I'm leaving on a very long journey on Saturday, so I'm taking it easy trying to beat this thing by then.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:32 AM | Comments (0)