Blog

robbed

14 Dec 2009 22:56:00 -0500

In case you hadn't heard, we got robbed this weekend. We were dog-sitting for some folks in town, and stopped by our house to grab some things to have the please of finding a kicked-in back door. We're not sure if they were just stupid or what, cause they definitely missed some stuff that was worth more than the Wii, Xbox (original, not 360), and DVDs and games they stole. The Police came and dusted for prints and everything, but didn't find any, so they probably had gloves on (not completely stupid I guess).

They took the box that we had all our games and manuals and stuff in, and I had smartly written the Wii's serial number in the Wii manual... But, since I had registered the Wii online, I was able to get the serial number from Nintendo's website. I was pretty disappointed however, that Nintendo had no desire to tell me what IP addresses (if any) my Wii connected to them with, even though their privacy policy (and common sense) dictates that they log connections for 24-48 hours. Pretty stupid.

The xbox was a different problem, I had never written down the serial number anywhere since it was old before I even got it. Luckily, I stumbled across an old backup of the xbox's hard drive and eeprom (did I mention I modded it? - yeah it probably has little resell value), and did some googling to find that the backed-up eeprom binary contains the serial number, which I was able to extract as well! (with od -a eeprom.bin in linux if you're curious)

So, if the thieves try to pawn my xbox or Wii, the pawn shop has to check the serial number against the police database, which now contains both. So, all that was left was trying to remember what games and dvds we had... That was not nearly as fun. So, let this be a warning to you: save yourself some trouble, take pictures of your stuff and save the serial numbers for your more expensive/pawnable items somewhere safe. Yeah, it's just stuff, we don't NEED any of it...

That said, we have renter's insurance with USAA, and I have a bad feeling that we'll be making out better than the bandits in all this. Minus the stress, claims process, door replacement, and police paperwork of course.

Grant Proposal Weekend

09 Dec 2009 23:30:00 -0500

The last week was fairly hectic, on top of finishing assignments for classes and trying to figure out what I'm doing for classes next semester (yeah I'm a little late on that one...), my advisors were working on a grant proposal to pretty much keep funding what I'm doing right now. The grant ran out last semester, so I couldn't have had better timing getting the fellowship I have now, but it won't last forever.

The week comes and goes, documents and figures flying back and forth, scrambling to convince the reviewers that we deserve to get lots of money. Then the weekend comes, and I get a call from my advisor asking why I'm not online to answer my emails at noon on a Saturday. I guess I'm a slacker or something... 2 days before the due date and we're still 4 pages over the limit, and much of the superflous text sections already removed.

I ended up spending a good 3-4 hours going through the paper removing adjectives and strategically cutting words from paragraphs with only a word or two on the last line. Pretty brutal on my head, but I managed to get an extra 2 pages out of it (did I mention my advisors are quite verbose?).

So when it was all done and submitted, I make the mistake of jokingly asking to relax for a bit. Nope, I'm told, if anything I need to work harder since the reviewers are going to be testing the system. That and the NIH way is to do the work before you get the money.

Did I mention how low the grant acceptance rates are? Let's just say the odds aren't good. Ah the life of a grad student. I'm sure I'm making you jealous.

Motorcycles in December

03 Dec 2009 23:52:00 -0500

I'll admit it, I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to bike-riding weather. Over 3 years of nearly year-round motorcycle season in Texas, around the same for Knoxville, although December through February I've typically avoided it. One of the problems I have with our upcoming move to Maine is that the weather won't be nearly as amenable to motorcycling. Thats why a few weeks ago I invested in some cold-weather gear -- namely full-finger gloves and a facemask to block the wind. I need to start conditioning myself to the non-south.

It used to be that my hands and face would be screaming in pain before I got a few stoplights from campus. I would pray for red lights just for the chance to warm back up. There would be no way I'd ever go on the highway with it that cold. But now, I've ridden a few times in 40-degree weather to campus and across town on the highway, and it's not nearly as bad. It's definitely not warm by any means, since my jacket isn't completely windproof and I still don't have chaps, but with a few layers and some longjohns I make do just fine.

It's funny that I've gone from being a fair-weather rider to pretty much the only bike on the road now. Maybe I'm slightly more hardcore...

Only one more semester to go

02 Dec 2009 23:25:00 -0500

This semester is wrapping up, and despite all the headaches I've had to deal with, I've made it through. I realized tonight that the last set of coursework I'll have to take is next semester, and then I'll be done with classes for the rest of my life. It's kinda weird to think about, I've been a student my entire life so far so I don't really know much else... I'll admit I can't wait thought, to be free from the homework and rigid schedules... and have a completely new set of deadlines to deal with.

I need to start figuring out what my dissertation is going to contain exactly. Oddly enough, I'm not dreading writing it so much. Sure know I'll have plenty of time for it soon.

Tennessee, or the bane of my existence

01 Dec 2009 11:33:00 -0500

I swear people in Tennessee just don't want to do their jobs. Nearly every day I am reminded of this. It's like everyone here has resigned themselves to only do the bare minimum amount of work to get by and nothing more.