suddenly busy
I was at Berkeley yesterday, helping another graphics student on some renderings for his paper. We went in to talk with James in the afternoon, at which point I was invited to take a bit more responsibility for doing the renderings and, in return, maybe be an author on the paper. This was very flattering–that James thought enough of me to give me the assignment, and thought the work merited authorship on the paper. It also means a lot of work, and expectations of accomplishment. Well… it was about time for this vacation to officially end. Things should be kind of hellish until the 26th–the SIGGRAPH submission deadline–but also a lot of fun, I hope. Graphics is weird in that there’s really just one conference, and so everyone in the graphics hallway is there, with a mug of coffee, hunched and typing. I am, too, but in the first-year office where there is currently no one else. I pulled an old, crappy pair of speakers off the shelf and hooked them up so I could code to some Phish and Orbital (the more mindless, the better). Once I make sure that it’s kosher, I’ll post some pictures of what I’m working on, but basically, it’s smoke.
a slow week
I’ve been back in town a week now, but I’ve decided to ease back into real life instead of going for the stark change that Leslie went through on Monday. You get the luxury of these choices when all your vacation is unpaid.
It’s been almost a year since we stopped freeloading off of UT and moved overt to a professional hosting service. Over the last few months, we discovered that the hosting service we picked also likes to host spammers. Because of this, we’ve had a few emails blocked from our servers because the host in general is being blocked. We called and bitched at Servepath (the host), who calmly told us that they have a zero-tolerance policy toward spam and that the offenders’ accounts would be cancelled. All lies, actually–they seem to have a policy of lying to customers and taking spam money, so we’ll be leaving them shortly for a new host–I’m not sure yet which, but I’ll try to make the swap as trouble free as possible. If you have any ideas, let me know.
Most absurd xmas present award goes to Doug, who bought me a 27" HDTV. Damn. I’m still reeling from that one. My favorite thing about the HDTVs is that they don’t make the whine normal TVs do when turned on. The whine is caused by the refresh rate, which is 15KHz, outside of some peoples hearing range, but not mine. HDTVs refresh at twice that rate, so only dogs are in trouble, I guess. In any case, I love it.
Leslie has entered into her last 100 teaching days. Praise jebus. I have been officially classified as a California resident for tuition purposes, which means I’m free to travel where every I want this summer… finally. Whether I’ll actually go anywhere… that remains to be seen. We do have this wedding to attend and yet another move to yet another Bay area town.
It’s been raining here all week. I feel justified in extending my quasi-vacation to prevent myself from being soaked on the way to the train station.
colorado
We got into denver without incident. The airline (Frontier) was cool, in that it had little TVs in every seat, but uncool in that you had to pay $5 to watch. They also get bonus points for handing out Sun Chips as snacks and giving you the whole can of Coke with your little plastic cup of ice. I read and dozed as I always do on planes.
We met my parents in their rented Oldsmobile and drove the hour and a half out to (not Breckenridge, but) Winter Park. I guess technically we’re in a suburb of Winter Park called “Tabernash.” Monday we went out to do some cross-country skiing, which was interesting, as most new things are, but eventually just exhausting and vaguely frustrating. I’m sure people who really like hiking (ick) could get into it. I’m glad we all got to do it together as a family, though, because it had been too long since we’d done something like that.
We decided to move our plane tickets back to a return date of the 30th instead of the 1st. Doing so cost us, net, about $220 each. Yeowch. But I think the extra couple of days will benefit Les’s preperations for school greatly, and I won’t mind it either. Also it means we don’t have to be here when everyone is cleaning up the cabin to leave. Hee.
Tuesday we hit the slopes of Winter Park, for one of the most crowded skiing days of the year. Renting stuff took a while, but it was tolerable. Once we got up on the slopes, things were actually great. Practically no lift lines, not too many people in your way as you skied, my brother picking up the technique just like I did two years ago after 15 years of disuse. At the end of the day I crunched my knee, so we called it quits. Today’s doctor visit and x-rays confirm that there’s nothing really wrong with me.
Tomorrow we head back home. I’ve started to feel that longing at the end of a trip to be back in my own space again. To ignore other people, to not do things, and bury myself in my private world. This vacation seems like it’s been so long. But full.
Comments
amy — 2004-12-30 08:06:14
i’m glad there’s nothing really wrong with you. not with your knee, at least. ;) lovely to see you – sorry it was such a short visit. tell leslie i’ve got the candlestick on my bookcase.
snow! and comment spam
We’ve been in Dallas a few days now, having a grand time of it. Food has been consumed, movies have been enjoyed (or not), and much slacking generally accomplished. Last night I had genuine crab legs, which if you’re not familiar are in fact the greatest substance to have been placed on earth for human consumption by the intelligent designer who has just as much of a right to play time in our science classrooms as any other alien invader. Leslie and I gave Cam an early present of World of Warcraft (the first one is always free), and as a pair of cows we’ve been gallavanting about the country side, cursing, skinning, and riddling with bullets all recalcitrant bundles of pixels we happen across.
Today, in Texas, it began to snow. At first tentative, wet and flighty. Then with confidence, big hulking chunks of uniqueness smacking you in the face and momentarily blinding you. We hopped–there exists video evidence of this will I will shortly point you to–and I can say with confidence that never has bouncing been more justified.
On the docket for the coming days is more of the same sort of blatant, selfish loafing, with an eventual sojourn to Colorado for some even colder weather and potentially some skiing. Overt has been hit with more comment spam, with over 200 interesting and informative posts about gambling online. I’m not quite miffed enough to resort to a technical solution, but when I do, so help me, I’ll make those inanimate programs wish that they’d never been set to work in the basement of a rich suburban spammer.
Comments
Ali — 2004-12-25 01:43:40
But I rather enjoy the 200+ at least attempted comments my blog receives each day for penis enlargement, online gambling and assorted drugs. They are great fun. Trust me, time to find the technical solution, it only gets worse.