Hero / Anti-Hero

Here is one of my heros, Fred Funk. As with many good heros, he plays his golf in a skirt. Actually, he donned the skirt after getting out driven by Annika Sorenstam at a skins game last year (he ended up with a big victory).

And here is an anti-hero, Julian Tavarez, in his old Cardinals uniform. Unfortunately, Julian was picked up this year by my favorite team, the Red Sox. He's a punk, you can just tell from the picture. He'll punch a phone at the drop of a hat.

Countdown

I've officially started the countdown to the end of the semester! Next Monday is my last lecture, and I'm giving my final on the 10th. After the 10th I will have plenty of time to keep both of my loyal blog readers entertained and informed!

Guess Who Won The Masters...

Paul's Moving The Family Back East

I talked to my pal Paul (seen here with his crash helmet), and he tells me that he's moving to Williamstown MA. Spectacular! Williamstown is a 45 minute drive from Troy, which is pretty handy for me. Nice ride too!

I found this picture by Googling him. And you know what? I once gave (sold?) Paul a crash helmet that was a bit too small for my noodle. Could it be that this is that very head gear? Small world.

p.s. Happy Iranian new year!

My kingdom for a camera phone

My new blog header says "people blow my mind, everyday." Well, today my mind was blown by the following announcement, which is displayed prominently in the hall on the mens room door at work:

Attn: Please be considerate of the other men on this floor.
*Stop defecating* on the toilet seat!!!

It nearly killed me to read this...oh how I wish I had a picture to share with you all. Big red lettering, complete with asterisks and triple exclamation points. So bizarre. I want to steal this sign and hang it up in random places. Maybe on the bathroom door at Kate's house.

Spring Break!

Hurrah, hurrah! No lectures for ten days!

Big Brother Shares Data

The CIA World Factbook is pretty cool. My most recent use was when I was discussing Iran with an Iranian coworker. I told her I'd heard of Ayatollah Khamenei, but my pronunciation was so bad that she had no idea who I was talking about. The CIA World Factbook cleared that up for us. By the way, his title is Supreme Leader, which I think is kinda wacky.

Datastar, here I come!

I received word from the San Diego super computer people that my application was approved, so I now have 10,000 cpu hours on their Datastar system! Isn't that exciting?!? (Yes, yes it is.)

As of November 2005, Datastar is ranked as the 35th fastest computer in the world. It has 2464 processors. I could, like, map the human genome or some shit.

More Worky

Von Mises stress in a polycystal, as determined by Dave...

Worky Worky

The semester started last week, and I've been hard at work with my new teaching appointment. I'm teaching dynamics to sixty-six sophomores. It's fun, I get dressed up in my professor clothes and write equations on the overhead projector. I'm still ironing out the lecture preparation process. It took me about twenty hours to get ready for the first one, then down to eight for the second one, and then down to maybe six or seven hours for the third lecture. This is in addition to my regular job, so I haven't been getting out much (or on line much). I'm gunning for a four or five hour prep time.

Here's a lovely picture from the first chapter.

Can you determine the value of v_o when d equals 228 mm?

p.s. According to the textbook, that's a girl shooting hoops.