overt.org

This weekend I set my self the task of finally, conclusively merging my music collection with Leslie’s. All told we’ve got about 11,500 tracks unique tracks, though it did take me most of the day to determine what parts of collections overlapped and which didn’t.

The ways we have come by our music differ drastically. I actually started with my collection of CDs (remember them?). I owned about 250 of them when I got to college and heard about MP3s. I spent my first winter break carefully ripping them all, with nice, uniform tags and metadata. I started to accumulate more music through swapping, mostly with people as careful as myself. Years went by, and I had my beautifully cared for collection, complete to a fault (why not have the complete Scorpions discography? I liked “Rock You Like a Hurricane”).

Then there was Leslie. In the free music orgy that was the honors dorm, she cherry picked the very best songs her friends and napster (and, later, limewire) had to offer. Unfortunately these little orphans didn’t come meticulously packaged like my music–sometimes the tracks weren’t tagged at all! So, I’m currently going through the merged collection, trying to repair all the songs with partial information. This must be done, for archival purposes, you see. Never let us forget that Sir Mix-a-lot’s classic “Baby Got Back” was issued on his 1992 masterpieceMac Daddy.

I have to share with you one song I found. The file name of the song is (all spelling lovingly preserved):

Dave Mathews Band, Phish, Guster, John Popper, Bela Fleck, Vic Wooten, Santana, Peter Greisar, Butch Taylor, Rusted Root, and Ben Harper - Two Step (live, rare).mp3

Sounds pretty amazing, huh? The song, when played, is the original version of the “Who’s the Boss?” theme.

The fall semester is now in full swing. I’ve managed to stick with two of three of my intended academic classes (Machine Learning! Computational Geometry!). Problem sets have not hit yet; I predict they will begin to deal their damage in the middle of next week.

I upgraded my self one level of hardcore-ness in swimming to a class that is also earlier in the morning. The dull ache throughout my upper body serves as a reminder of labors past. The setting for the class really couldn’t be better, though: it’s at Hearst pool, an open air, second-story pool with a solid marble deck that looks out directly over rolling green hills of campus toward the bell tower. This has the pleasant effect of making me feel like I’m in some movie from the 1950s about social challenges facing kids today set against the backdrop of the swimming team that brings them all together. Come on, you can hear the voiceover.

Yesterday Les and I went for some retail therapy at IKEA. Our main intent was to replace the rug in our living room which, while rug-like and on the floor, satisfied virtually no other requirements as far as cleanliness, tastefulness, etc. We failed mostly in this endeavor, mostly because of our stinginess, but generated many incidental purchases that brought them that classic American feeling of comfort that can only come from consumer goods. I got a little shaving mirror attached to one of those scissor-arms, and we got several random things for around the kitchen that we simply can’t wait for our wedding guests to buy for us.

Today I sold my shiny new MacBook Pro, so recently acquired. Why? Our research group had two of them donated very soon after I got mine, and one came my way. Luckily craigslist made short work of it so now it’s like i’ve got the same laptop except I didn’t have to pay for it.

Classes kicked off this week. I’m taking swimming, which looks like it will be a great way to get some more cardio, plus the pool it’s located at has a beautiful solid marble deck and a great view of campus. I’m also in a couple of hard-core CS grad courses that should be fine and move me that much closer to my Ph.D.

Today I gave the lecture in James’ graphics class–it was basically just a show-and-tell of recent graphics research–and I really enjoyed it. The pressure level was so much lower than the talks I’ve given recently, and I didn’t even have to rehearse. It was nice to remind myself what that kind of presentation can be like.

A couple of weeks ago my parents came up to Leslie’s parents ranch and had a great time eating and drinking and occasionally planning wedding stuff. They seemed to hit it off, which bodes well for the rest of forever our families will spend fused by “holy” matrimony.

Otherwise, things are just rolling along. We’re cooking and eating lots of good food, enjoying the dregs of summer weather before the rain comes. Leslie pointed out to me today that some of the trees here in Berkeley have started to change already, as we careen down into this second year of our Berkeley life.

I love that I may actually make it to my 10-year high school reunion and still be in school. I was planning to discuss my possible classes for the fall (Computational Geometry, Machine Learning, User Interface Design) and I realized that the first time I posted my class schedule was six years ago. And that was for my sophomore year in college. I’ve got this feeling after this I’ll be done with school for good…

If you’re going to be a middling celebrity, at least you can have sense of humor about it