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June 29, 2006
Begging for Money
Today it looks like we finally succeeded in pulling in our first sponsor for the new Cognit*ive Engineering Center here at Tech. I feel especially responsible and so am basking in the glow of the money which is supposed to be headed our way. I think I've earned my keep for the next two semesters :) Not that I'm guaranteed to work on this contract at all -- nope more likely will be teaching. So this fall I figure I will be very busy and stressed. The good news is that if I teach I'll be making a little more money and might spring to have someone clean the bathrooms once a month -- ah the luxury.
Of course all of this is still up in the air pending word on 1) whether or not the money for the course has come in 2) the faculty decide that I can teach a one-off course on a topic I am only casually familiar with. Ha ha ha. I find this type of thing hilarious. All of you out there who know how patient I am are probably getting a kick out of all of this as there is nothing I can do but wait.
Posted by kfeigh at 02:48 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2006
Weekend
So, as I was unable to drag my body from bed on Friday morning to do my 5 mile run, I had to do it Saturday instead. I'm proud to say that I made it 5 miles in just over 50 minutes ;) Unfortunately I couldn't bend my right knee (this is normally the good knee) for the next 36 hours. I have no idea why. I'm guessing it is Steven's fault for encouraging me to try to run with my feet pointing straight out. (I think I normally run with my feet facing out a little). So because of the still sensitive knee and the pouring rain I did not run again today. The current plan is to run 5 miles again probably Friday or Saturday and then take it easy until the race. I figure Sarah will pull me through the last 1.2 miles.
I'm sitting here basically waiting to be told what to do. I've been "put in charge" of a proposal to NA*SA's most recent NRA. Now "put in charge" is a strange place to be since I have no idea what to do. Also because we are collaborating with two other people who are also working on other proposals "in charge" is more of a title than actaually anything else. So although I'm "in charge" I'm waiting to be told what to do. Interesting huh? One of the other people invovled likened it to watching sausage being made.
Oh and for any NA*SA people out there all I have to say is that if you want individuals to colaborate you are wasting a lot of money if you make it so that only one institute gets the money at a time. Why, well it is because of the stupendously high overhead that is charged on subcontracts. Waste of money.
Posted by kfeigh at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
June 21, 2006
Computer Drama
Everyday I start out with a plan (OK so some days I create the plan when I get to work) about what I will try to do in a given day. It never lasts long.
Today's problem of the hour: computer fan failure...
Today I arrived at work, opened the door to hear a really loud noise. Good grief, what is making all that noise? It turns out my computer was making all that noise. Panic!!. I rebooted and found that there was a fan failure -- which didn't make much sense (considering the noise was comming from an over active, not dead fan). So quickly I backed up all of my data, and called the help desk and began to diagnose my problem. No luck. Even when the IT guy got here and we checked everything out -- no luck. Time to call the manufacturer. The good news is that with 5 identical PCs and only two of us using them, we just swapped my HD for another computers. So right now Jackie is hosting me temporarily until we get Bess fixed.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:42 AM | Comments (1)
June 20, 2006
Psych Test
Work is going slowly today...
Posted by kfeigh at 03:43 PM | Comments (1)
June 16, 2006
Peachtree Prep
So way back in March when the weather was much cooler and I was preparing for the Pi Mile road race, Sarah mentioned, hey why not run the Peachtree with me? Sure, I thought 6 miles isn't horrendous and I'm running 3 miles pretty well right now.
Famous last words.
It is now warmer when I run that it was even at 4 in the afternoon when I signed up for this silly race. So I am now training for it. I've been running twice a week for 3 weeks now. I'm just now up to 4 miles. Anything more than twice a week and my knee complains too much. My time is pretty good if you don't count the 5 minute stretching break that I take at the end of the second mile. It is highly dependent though on the temperature outside. I tried to run last Saturday at 8:30am (an hour and a half later than I normally do) and almost died.
I just keep telling myself that the race will be as hilly as my training run so just keep going. My outer hamstring is a little sore though. I'm just grateful for all of the tall buildings and trees.
Posted by kfeigh at 10:42 AM | Comments (2)
June 15, 2006
New Computer
Well today has been productively shot so to speak. The new computers that we got about 2 weeks ago were finally ready to be cloned/imaged. This means that one computer that had been sent to the nether regions of IT land had come back to us and was about to be used to create identical images on the 4 other machines.
This was easy. The next part that took forever was installing of my additional software and migrating all my old stuff. I've managed to do and OK job. I lost my bookmarks though for mozilla...need to go find those.
That and a few other small snags. I should be fully up and running in about a month.
Posted by kfeigh at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
New Computer
Well today has been productively shot so to speak. The new computers that we got about 2 weeks ago were finally ready to be cloned/imaged. This means that one computer that had been sent to the nether regions of IT land had come back to us and was about to be used to create identical images on the 4 other machines.
This was easy. The next part that took forever was installing of my additional software and migrating all my old stuff. I've managed to do and OK job. I lost my bookmarks though for mozilla...need to go find those.
That and a few other small snags. I should be fully up and running in about a month.
Posted by kfeigh at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
June 14, 2006
World Cup
As I sit here doing thesis work with all of the trappings of the world cup around me, I am transported back to England with a definite sense of dejavu. Goodness, has it been 4 years since the last world cup? Where has the time gone, what progress have I made?
Work goes well, but fast and furious. I'm trying to talk a lot of people into paying for me to come observe their operations, or to let me use their software for free or to give our lab money to support more students. All of it takes time and lots of energy. Additionally I'm writing journal papers (well actually just the same one over and over again), conference papers and attempting to make progress on my thesis.
At least the good news on the conference paper front is that I will be in Seattle from Sept 20-22 and if anyone will have me, I could stay that weekend too.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:01 AM | Comments (2)
June 08, 2006
More random things
This morning I needed to run some on-campus errands. I had to drop books of at the library, get books from the library, pick up some air filters from the package window, etc. All very amusing. So as I fight my way up the four flights of stairs carying a 23"x23" box which weighs nothing until you put the 5 books from the library on top, I open the door to my office only to find more boxes there. Boxes of computers. Whoo hoo, we finally got new computers!!!! (All the computers in my lab are about 5 years old and well, on their last legs).
Of course this is kind of like teasing me because now the computers have to be imaged into good little ISyE computers for my safety. So I probably won't see them again for about a month :(
But still it is rather random. I'm so tempted to open one up and play with it. New toy, new toy. Iguess I should move them so that Keumjin can actually reach his desk. Then back to work.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
June 06, 2006
Constitutional Amendment
This whole issue of passing a constitutional amendment against gay marriage makes me really mad for at least two reasons. 1)It is a waste of time when we have much more important issues to work out like immigration reform, social security, medicare, global warming and the deficit. 2)Because in the history of this country the marjoity of amendments to the constitution have sought to either restrict the authority of government, protect the civil liberties of its citizens or clarify governmental accession. There have been two notable exceptions. First prohibition -- which was later repealed and then the income tax (which may also be repealed at sometime in the future). Clearly both were mistakes which we continue to pay for to this day.
Why on earth are we attempting to pass an amendment that will restrict the rights of a minority? If two adult, sane individuals decide to share their lives, to commit themselves to all of the craziness that comes from living with someone for years on end, to attempt to raise either theirs or someone else's children; for goodness sake don't you think they deserve just a little respect, common curtesy and the protection under law so that they too can suffer under the IRS marriage penalty?
If it bothers you to call it marriage, then call it something else. Civil unions, whatever allows you to sleep at night knowing that you have done right by God. But do move on with your lives, because we have serious issues in this country (and world) which we need to address and this, is not one of them.
Posted by kfeigh at 09:18 AM | Comments (6)
June 01, 2006
Finger brace 2.0
So the doc yesterday took a look at my finger, pronounced it much better and told me to come back on the 12th of June. Great. Well it turns out that I talked her into a smaller finger brace, the kind made for a pinky finger or a kid. It is just the length of my finger which means it is now much easier to type mmmmmms. The older brace extedned down my palm -- very inconvenient. So now I can type much faster again, yeah.
In other news I've now gotten my jornal paper down to 18 pages. Just one more page to go. I've also decided upon my four key points I'm trying to make in the paper. Hopefully the reviewers will like it more. I hope to finnish up all the little stuff and send it out at the end of next week.
Posted by kfeigh at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)