fun with MIT people!!

Hung out with Stacie and a bunch of MIT people last night up in Gurnee!! Fun times!! We cooked up a mexican feast, saw The Village in the front row at Showplace 8, and just had a great time!! It's fun when Alison can say that stacie has "a l33t tv" and no one even stops to think about the oddness of that statement. Seriously though, stacie's tv is pretty cool...somehow it gets the name of the current show off of the analog cable signal and displays that on the TV when you're flipping channels. Very cool. OK...I'll stop being a geek now and get ready for the wedding I'm going to today and get Pat and Ron on the radio :)

kerry...

so is it bad when people are shouting "kerry, kerry, kerry" at the convention and I'm thinking...why is everyone cheering for kerry wood? :) OK Susan, I am officially joining your club of Cubs/baseball addicts ;)

john stewart rocks

From the daily show tonight: Day three of the convention and what's the word on the street in boston....yankees suck!!

Paul Graham!

New Paul Graham article! Yay! He rocks...he's the guy who wrote the article Hackers and Painters and now he has a new one called Great Hackers. He makes a lot of good points about how to spot a good programmer and how hard that is until you've actually coded with her/him. Which is very true...we're trying to hire someone in our lab, and the hardest thing is to tell when someone is great. It's easy to spot good from bad, but great is hard to find without actually sitting down with someone and seeing how they solve some problems and approach coding. And just looking at code is not enough...because a lot of the art in coding is how you get there and how you solve the problem...just as much or more than what the final results is.

If any of you haven't read the original Hackers and Painters, you should! It's an interesting look at how writing good code is more like painting or architecture than anything else. Which I totally think is true. It's about being creative within bounds and thinking different. It's about trying, sketching, revising, improving, and doing it all so that it fits the tastes and needs of the people who are going to use it.

Chip and Ron...

Cubs announcers rock...even TV ones. Chip bought a book for Ron Santo called "How to speak dog" which has a dog named Ron on the cover and says "parlez-vous dog?" on the back. For those not in the know, Ron Santo has been having issues with his new "french-speaking dog" that was rased in Quebec. Listen to a cubbies game or two on good old WGN radio and find out the latest tales of the dog...

go cubbies go!!

Went to an awesome cubbies game last night up in milwaukee with my dad and susan! SO much fun! And awesome to go to a cubs game for $1 :) I love milwaukee :) Maddux was awesome, got win 299, and the cubbies actually drove in some runs not on homeruns for a change. If they can keep this up, it'll be a great end of the season! :)

Not much else new around here...

triggers...

Walking around blockbuster today I was amazed one more time the crazy emotions you can feel just looking at movie boxes and remembering the times when you watched them. Movies curled up with Annie or Laura, or good times out with friends in boston, or movies rented at student house and watched in the parlor late at night. It's just cool that all that can come back to you just looking at a little box. Our brains are awesome :)

Watching the sox game now! Hopefully they can do what the cubbies couldn't today! Especially against the yankees!!! All this boston in the news with the convention and the red sox-yankees series has really made me miss that city even more!!

Oh, and John Kerry is at the game tonight...he was talking about how he hates the DH rule! Yeah Kerry, giving me more reasons to vote for you in the fall ;)

flyers!

Schaumburg Flyers game was fun! Even though they lost :( Yay to susan for getting free tickets on the lawn! Although why they made that lawn so steep, I'll never understand!

Today should be a quiet day, which will be nice. I should really start getting a portfolio together for grad school apps sometime. Not today though.

I've been thinking a lot about why work is getting me down a lot lately. And it's really the same thing that got me down last year about this time. Our lab has a small group of really awesome, really smart people who know what they are doing and that I'd call leaders in the field in what they do. Most of them are pretty young and working with them, we can do amazing things like our project last year turned out to be. But the other half+ of the lab is made up of people who didn't keep up with changes in their fields, "software engineers" who don't know basic principles of software, and management that doesn't know anything about what any of us do and feel the need to micromanage the "good" people so they are applying practices fairly across everyone in the lab.

They've formed this change committee in the lab now to try to make things better...it'll be interesting to see what they come up with and if they are even listented to if what they recommend is rather drastic.

In any case, I'm glad to be looking elsewhere because I think the chances of improvement on a drastic scale are pretty small. Google might be a fun place if I want to keep working, although school is sounding better and better right now :) Boston or San Francisco might be in my future pretty soon!! :) What a tough decision though if I get into both MIT and berkeley...

yay for reunions!

WildStang reunion was tonight!! Yay!! Got to hang out with a bunch of old friends from high school, old high school teachers, and the whole current FIRST crew! It was a gerat time for sure, including susan's hidden beer, diana's scrapbooks, veggie "chicken" patties on the grill, and winning an award called 'don't rain on my parade' for always smiling. Which was nice, cause I haven't been smiling a whole lot lately with my work situation, so that put a big one back on my face :)

It's bizarre to talk to old teachers years later about the things you didn't think they knew about from back when you were a student. Like stealing street signs, or exactly what went on inside that imagination ride, or jumping down on plymouth rock. Anyway...fun times for sure!! :)

Flyers game tomorrow! Yay! And Susan is joining me, my dad, and stacie for a cubbies game in milwaukee on tuesday! Who else wants to go?? We're getting in line at 3:30 or 4pm for cheap seats that go on sale at 5. And you have to be in line to get a ticket... Go cubbies!!! Another win today!!! :)

Now, I'm off to read some marquez short stories before going to bed! :)

another sad week...

work is still sad. just a lot of stuff not going well with people not doing what they are supposed to or backing out of doing things they said they would do. No fun.

But tomorrow is the WIldStang reunion!!!! Yay!!! I'm so excited!! :)

Sneezing in the light...

Guess I can never fly a combat plane - why would I want to anyways?? Photic sneeze reflex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Slashdot links to the most bizarre, but interesting, sites sometimes :)

Gehry knows where it's at :)

So I'm loving Frank Gehry a lot more. His design for the new Lab for Computer Science and AI lab at MIT has a PUB on the 4and AND 5th floors!!! Talk about designing a building for its occupants!

"Also in late August, the R and D Pub will open on the fourth and fifth floors of Stata to MIT community members and their guests. The pub will offer beer and wine as well as a typical pub grill menu of burgers and fries, grilled chicken sandwiches, pasta and salads. Regular hours will be 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. The pub will be available for events on weekends." from here and more about the building here

funny!

I'm stealing a link from Laura...but this is hilarious!! :) Bush and Kerry singing This Land is Your Land!!!

MS vs. Moto

so I'm reading this book about how MS does interviews...and they ask a bunch of programming/logic puzzles at the interview. And there's this one about getting a series of people across a bridge in 17 minutes. They all walk at different predefined paces and there's a little thinking involved to figure out the right order to send people across in. And MS expects you to solve it in 5 minutes. They said one guy wrote a c program to solve it in the interview...most people just reason it out. But the best part was that they said the question was posed to 50 engineers at motorola, none of which could figure it out :)

bad then better :)

So I thought this week could not get any worse. And I was wrong! This morning was truly horrible and I had a good hour and a half + "discussion" with a coworker who decided to completely ignore the work we had done over the past year and a half and the nice APIs we've created and hack together a hard-coded one off. So yes, lots of "discussion" And TBC next week. Oh work has been oh so fun lately!

But things got better as the day went on. It looks like were back to almost doing the same project we had planned on and the last month was not for waste. And then to make a bad day totally wonderful, I got to hang out with my awesome friend stacie!!! PF Chang's lettuce wraps, good wine, borders, and King Arthur all brought me back to happiness :) Stacie, you rock!!!! Thanks so much for cheering me up! :)

Now though, it's off to bed!!!

movies...

Who wants to go see movies this summer in grant park??? I'll probably go for Mr. Smith and the Birds at least, but could be convinced to go to more :)

long week...and it's only tuesday!

Wow...I think this has been the longest week ever at work! And it's only tuesday...oh boy... So just when we thought we had everything together and were all set to work on a project, people started questioning it, and it looks like we might be starting from scratch again. Or at least have to change a lot of what we thought we were going to do. It's really frustrating and just telling me more and more that I need to keep looking for other places to go and things to do. Lauraf and I are studying for the GRE, so that's always an option!! Who knows...but I'm just really fed up with things right now. How hard is it to just make a decision and go with it?

Ugh, enough complaining. I hate to complain...it's just been a horrid week so far. Who wants to do something this week or this weekend? I really need to get out!!!

birthdays...

So within the past two days, two different friends of mine have said that they totally expect their boyfriends to not remember their birthdays this year. Now, hmm. This does not seem reasonable to me in any way. It's like um, YOUR BIRTHDAY! Maybe it's just cause I've always set up really extravagant birthdays for the people I have dated, but still, it seems like the guy should at the very least remember the day and do something for you, no? Even if they are in a different city, some sort of nice card/poem/creative gift/something...Am I crazy? I don't think so... Although one person thinks I'm being too demanding in wanting someone that's smart, fun, and remembers my birthday...um, I'd hope for all that at the very least...

Went for a nice bike ride along the lake today...rode all the way down to Navy Pier. A really nice ride...maybe 25 miles or so round trip. It was great to see everyone out on the beaches and running along the trails. And it was beautiful outside today too...like 75ish and sunny along the lake. Although I now have a tan the shape of an ipod mini on my left arm...oh well :)

Now hopefully Kerry Wood can step back in the lineup tonight and beat these pesky cardinals!! Let's hope :)

sad cubbies

Th cubbies are killing me lately! But not as much as they are getting to Ron. Man, on the radio today he was just completely devoid of hope...saying things like "*if* farnsworth can get another strike" and "I wonder what our pitchers feel like when we never have a pitcher up with a lead?" So sad :( Where are these guy's bats lately!!??

And still sad about the news from earlier in the week.

I'm having a nice relaxing weekend for once. Lots of cubs game watching, reading, and relaxing out on the evanston beaches :) Next weekend, TMLMTBGB and a beer garden...who's in???

And if anyone has any advice for studying for the GRE, let me know!! My friend Laura and I are taking them this fall!!

I'm off for a run now! Hope everyone is enjoying the nice summer weather!!

woo woo

Ronnie woo woo rocks :) He's sitting right in the front row up at Miller Park, and had a "Cubs woo" going on for an entire inning while Milwaukee was up to bat!!! And he had this shirt on saying "World woo! Series woo!" and "Just Woo It" on the back :) Go Woo Woo!!! :)

Too bad the cubbies are losing :(

3rd base

Harris last night was the 100th 3rd baseman to play for the cubbies since Santo! Wow. 100! Guess Ronnie was just irreplacable!! :) If you don't know what I'm talking about, go see This Old Cub!!! Apprantly it's even playing in LA now!!!

miller, cubbies, and sadness^2

Hey!! So today was quite the interesting day! :) Went up to the tour at Miller in Milwaukee, which was a little lame, but a lot of fun and we got free beer!! Yay!! :) Then off to the game with Susan, a friend of hers and Em! Good game, and I totally had a blast, but sadness, the cubbies lost again! And wow...so I'm a big fan of traditional ballparks, but when your ballpark has skee ball in the outfield section, that's just damn cool :)

In unrelated news, again sadness that people I seem to fall for are all either taken or don't want anything to do with guys right now. Sadness. Oh well. And I was *really* excited this time too :(

Go Cubbies!! :)

fortune cookie from pf chang's...

"If you wish to, you will have an opportunity" - which stacie is taking to mean that I should say something to someone :) But I'm a chicken...

Cubbies in Milwaukee!

Fun times at the game today!! Went up there with my good friend from MIT stacie who is also a huge cubbies fan! :) Met susan and friends, who got $1 seats!!! Man, I wish Wrigley sold day of seats for $1! I would so be in line all night for seats like that!! But we had nice 9th row seats from a friend at work. Totally amazing seats in a park that I must admit I actually really like :) Too bad the cubbies couldn't come through, but that's ok....better luck tomorrow when I'll be back for more with the same people :) Except all sitting together this time! :) Fun fun! I'm excited! :) And I get to go on my very first Miller tour tomorrow, as well as experience closing at Wolski's...this bar that susan is always talking about :)

And I got to have lettuce wraps after the game at PF Changs!! :) Mmmmm. And went through the Wawatosa area without running into ethel...always a good thing! :)

Everyone cheer for the cubbies tomorrow!!! :)

so much to say!!

Summary: Awesome weekend!! Fireworks, Counting Crows, fun with Susan and friends, and two cubbies games coming!

So...I'm gonna go in sort of random order. Cause that's just how I'm feeling right now :)

OK...so first off, there should never be a single store so big that you need a map to get around it! We were all in Meijer last night...er, this morning. And we just wanted to find some posterboard and sharpies. (Cubs game!) So we get a map and look at it while we're walking...and apparantly in a store of that size, a section like school supplies is too small to mention. So we wandered for a bit, but susan found the right place! Anyway, no store should be that large...though I'm torn cause it's cool to be able to buy just about anything in the world 24 hours a day. :)

So now for tonight! I went to go see Counting Crows with Lyci and her boyfriend! Fun times, although it was H O T out in the sun!! Got there around 1:15, got a good veggie dog and staked out a place on the lawn in front of the bandshell...pretty good seats too! Saw a cool band I've never heard of, The Old 97s...sort of punky rock sort of music. They were good! Then They Might be Giants came out and just totally sucked. I don't think anyone in the crowd really wanted to see them...well except for these very odd people a few blankets down from us that seemed to be grooving with it :) But the main event, Counting Crows!! They were truly awesome! The best concert I've seen this year for sure (Lewis Black isn't a concert!) :) Tons of fun!

Then I came back and watched the evanston fireworks from the rocks on the beach...so fun! So beautiful!!! And I could walk home...very cool :)

Yesterday was a ton of fun too!! Even though we got rained on at Frontier Days! We still got a short ride on the Ferris Wheel, and got to go see Dodgeball! Hilarious movie!! If you go, you have to stay till the end of the credits, but then again, once you see that part, you might wish you left early! That milkshake song will eternally bring bad memories to my mind! But super fun to hang out with susan and friends! And very very very cool to get to see Diana again!!!! Yay!!! :)

Now I must go to bed. Two days of Cubbies fun in Milwaukee coming up!! Yay!!! :) And they SWEPT the White Sox!!! Awwww yeah!!! Go cubbies!!!!! :)

taste

The taste was fun tonight! Got to hang out with an MIT friend and some high school friends. Yay! And got to walk by Millenium Park...awesome place! I can't wait until it opens and I can hear a concert in the new outdoor stage. If you haven't seen it, they have these huge arcs over the lawn with big speakers on them and mics so they can "bounce" the sound off of the ceiling that doesn't exist! Basically it makes it sound like you're in a concert hall, not an outdoor ampitheater since you get reverberant sound and not just the direct field. Yay, I learned something in professor bose's class that I actually used again!! Go Bose! :)

Anyway, good food tonight at the taste! The BEST veggie dog I've ever had. It seriously tasted like the good old meat dogs I used to eat all the time growing up. I was seriously fooled. Too bad the restaurant that serves them is on like 72nd street or maybe I'd go sometime not at the taste!!

And again, I am in love with chicago...michigan ave on a nice warm evening. Walking along by all the amazing architecture. The wrigley building, tribune tower, smurfit stone, millenium park, the art institute, up to the water tower. There's just so much variety in that little one mile walk! And just such a great wonderful city! Yay chicago!

Bush

What is he thinking???

suburbs and friends :)

So I saw the Gin Blossoms tonight at Frontier Days! Which for those of you not from the Arlington Heights area, is like this little suburb festival about 25 miles out of the city. So it was cool that they were there. It drew quite the family crowd though, and probably wasn't what the band was expecting...especially after playing Milwaukee's Summerfest last night! So yeah, it was pretty quiet and laid back, but it was cool to hang out with old high school friends and relax a little. Even if there was no dancing on tables :)

After the show, we went to this horrid bar. If any of you find yourselves in downtown arlington heights, never go to Peggy's! Our hostess was mean, our waitress was meaner, and you can't sit outside past 11:00. Anyway, it was entertaining, if only to laugh at the waitress and reminisce about old high school memories :)

I love summertime in Chicago!! It's so great to see a bunch of really great friends and be outside. Hopefully the weather will hold out for the weekend and I'll be able to catch a few more concerts with a bunch of great friends! :)

Have a happy 4th for those of you heading out of town! And a happy Friday to everyone else!