Just another solipsist

More Travel

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 08:23:56 GMT

Hello everyone! Another of my decadely updates, and wouldn't you know it, it's about travel. Given that this is a rather big trip, I set up another lj for the purpose: antarctic_sh. Go there for the occasional update and picture.

Home!

Mon, 03 Jul 2006 19:51:59 GMT

Hooray! I'm home! I got back to LA late last night - my connecting flight from Chicago was delayed by an hour, so I got into LA at 12:30 AM. Lydia was there to meet me, which was the best part of the trip. :) Staying home today, to relax and get settled back in. I'm going shopping later today, as my cupboards are largely empty. Some milk would be nice, for one.

My birthday went okay. It was the day after the conference ended, so I didn't have to work, which was nice. I went to see the Durham cathedral. It's an impressive building. It has the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and the tomb of the venerable Bede as well, for those who like dead people. They let you climb to the top of a tower, and there's a great view over the town.

Owl Shift is a Hoot!

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 15:45:01 GMT

... but having to deal with people not similarly phase-shifted is annoying. Drove home yesterday, arriving about 20 hours after I'd woken up. I'm almost surprised I did okay driving. Now at home to regroup before departing tomorrow. This trip won't be nearly as long, at least.

SLAC

Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:39:48 GMT

I don't update often, but this deserves a mention. I'm currently at SLAC, and will be until the 24th. My group's experiment is doing a calibration using an electron beam. We're going to fire the beam into a big block of ice, and look for the radio Cherenkov coming out. It should look pretty neat - a balloon payload, dangling on a hook in front of a big block of ice, in front of a beam of ~28 GeV electrons.

Sun, 21 May 2006 17:33:30 GMT

1. If you can be any of RPG the characters you've created, living in our regular world, what would you be? (I want desciption, not just name. Though including name is fine.)

There's a few I definitely wouldn't be. For example, there's Sam, the 6-foot tall anthropomorphic squirrel with a penchant for archery and dying. Getting mobbed by furries could be fun for awhile, but the vivisection probably wouldn't be. The other non-human and/or fantasy world characters probably wouldn't be a great idea either. Lots of culture shock there. I've played a few World of Darkness characters, though, and they're perfectly suited for modern living. Not a vampire - the power would be nice, but it's harder to enjoy when you're dead. Werewolves have too many things trying to kill them.
So I think I'd go with Bob. Bob was a physics graduate student at Purdue University. (Okay, not so creative. He was only my second character. :P ) By the time the game finished, he was a pretty powerful wizard. He ended up living somewhere in the Canadian wilderness, raising the last dragon. (And making a lot of money by selling cast-off dragon bits to other wizards. You know how hard it is to get dragon scale for your potions nowadays?) Enough detail? Ask more if you like - I'm sure every gamer loves talking about his or her characters. ;)

2. Penguins or squirrels?

Penguins!

3. You retain your knowledge and consciousness but gets turned into an animal. What animal?

Hm. I'm torn between a dolphin and a gorilla. (Or maybe a chimpanzee?) Maybe a parrot? ... I think I'll have to go with gorilla for now.

4. What do you do as said animal?

Become rich by doing talk shows, acting, and writing a few books. Then use my wealth to live in luxury.

5. In pursuit of happiness, is it enough to be content (i.e. everything is alright, nothing is bad), or will you pursue joy, at the risk of finding unhappiness instead?

That's a hard one. Historically, I've gone for content. I tend to be risk-averse. It might be nice to pursue joy once or twice, though. What do you think?

This time, asked by sylly . ... A long time ago. Sorry, P. Got kind of busy and stressed with my qual coming up.

Stress: Here->There

Thu, 18 May 2006 17:39:29 GMT

So, I passed my qualifier. Yay! Now I go from being busy getting ready for that to being busy getting our instrument ready. (And I get a pay raise, which is nice.) Spent all day yesterday at Irvine, and I'll be doing that again a few more times in the next week or two.

Timesinks

Mon, 15 May 2006 19:13:11 GMT

I spent a busy weekend avoiding what I should be doing.
Friday: Cuddle party.
Saturday: Dinner with friends of Lydia's, and watching a documentary that she worked on.
Sunday: All day at the Ren Faire with Lydia and other friends. (A great time!)

And of course, the thing I should have been doing is studying for my qualifying oral. Tomorrow morning I take it. My presentation is looking pretty good by now, but I'm really worried about being able to answer questions that the committee members might ask.

5 Questions

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:44:41 GMT

LJ meme time:

Rules: Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me." I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal. You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

These questions asked by nephandi

1. You have to choose between never being able to LARP again, or never being able to tabletop again. Which do you choose?

That's easy. Never LARP again. The times I've gotten involved with LARPs, it was because I couldn't find any tabletop games to join.

2. Congratulations, you get to become the personification of a concept. Which one? You are not allowed to select from the following: Death, Dream, Destiny, Desire, Destruction, Delight, Delirium, Despair.

(Of those, I think I'd pick Death. She seems the happiest of the lot.) That's not an easy question. And what would it be like to be the personification of, say, the Conservation of Energy, or Occam's Razor? Right now, I'm split between Happiness and Truth. Flip a coin, and that's the one I'll be.

3. Name your son, and name your daughter.

... Because I'm not about to write out a birth certificate right now, and don't want to waste perfectly good names by putting them down here, I'll pick two names which will certainly not be the names I'd end up using. Frank and Betty.

4. How would you go about fighting the zombie apocalypse?

Ideally? Sitting in a comfy chair on the other side of the planet and pushing the big red "launch" button on an ICBM. Realistically? Trying to shamble more slowly and awkwardly and thus hold back the rest of the horde.

5. What five things would you like to see invented?

Let's go with,
Atomic scale manufacturing (i.e., being able to build things atom by atom)
True artificial intelligence
Copying of human minds into computers
The social, political and educational structures that make up Gene Roddenberry's United Federation of Planets
and of course, the really cool thing that's even better than all of those, but which no one has thought up yet.

Old News

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 20:16:15 GMT

Okay, so I don't update too often. Anyway, last week I was bitten by Akasha. No sign of vampirism yet, though.

Newer news - seems that the gas company didn't get the order to stop service I put in last month. Annoying. Everything seems to be cleared up now, though.

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 03:23:00 GMT

So, I haven't updated for awhile. I've been very happy with my new apartment - it's great having my own place. And just as an apartment, there's many things better than my old one. I preferred my old gas stove to this new electric one, though.

Last Saturday, I finally turned in the keys for my old apartment. Now I wait for them to send my what's left of my security deposit (and the extra rent for February that they had me overpay), and I can be free of the old place.

Finally, I had a wonderful dinner last night with my girlfriend. Yay!

New Apartment!

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 19:09:26 GMT

I now have everything moved to my new apartment. (Well, everything except for the vacuum cleaner.) I'm still sore from carrying everything. It's a nice place, though. Feels a bit strange to have all that space to myself, but I like it. I'm starting to get things put away, but there's still boxes of stuff on the floor. It'll take me a while to have everything the way I want it, I think. Oh - and I'm really liking the dishwasher.

Moving

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 20:25:33 GMT

Anyone with no plans for this Saturday is invited to join in a fun afternoon of furniture moving, starting around 2pm! (For those it may concern - being deathly ill can count as plans.)

Sat, 24 Dec 2005 00:50:17 GMT

So, on my flight from LA to Denver, I sit down in my seat, 17D. I get the feeling that the number is familiar, and I pull out the copy of "American Gods" (by Neil Gaiman) that I've been reading.

"The plane seemed pretty full, as he made his way down toward the back. Actually, Shadow found, it was completely full, and there was a middle-aged woman sitting in seat 17D. Shadow showed her his boarding card stub, and she showed him hers: they matched."

My flight was completely full, and I was waiting for "a middle-aged woman" or a tall ex-con to try claiming my seat, but my flight seems to have only had one person assigned each seat.

My favourite passage from the book (the first speaker here is Anubis):

"Back in my day, we had it all set up. You lined up when you died, and you'd answer for your evil deeds and for your good deeds, and if your evil deeds outweighed a feather, we'd feed your soul and your heart to Ammet, the Eater of Souls."

"He must have eaten a lot of people." [This is Shadow, of 17D fame.]

"Not as many as you'd think. It was a really heavy feather. We had it made special. You had to be pretty damn evil to tip the scales on that baby."

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 00:48:16 GMT

Oh Great Cthulhu!

I have been an extremely diligent devotee this year.

In October, I made a burnt offering to the Dead Dreamer (100 points). In November, I sacrificed sylly to Cthulhu (500 points). In July, I visited my relatives in Innsmouth (100 points). Last week, I prepared an ocean voyage to R'lyeh (200 points). In April, I stopped sylly from defiling Lovecraft's grave (-20 points). In August, I burnt my copy of the Necronomicon (-75 points).

In short, I have been very good (805 points) and deserve to get hooked up with one of those cute Innsmouthers.

Your humble and obedient servant,
solipsist2

Submit your own plea to Cthulhu!

Past Couple Days

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:29:15 GMT

Sunday: Sick with Wimpiest Cold Known To Man (tm). Bad. Did laundry. Good! Ascended my KoL character. Yippee!

Monday: Getting better. Still skipped dance practice. Even recovering sick, would be height of rudeness to show up. Very sad. :(

Tuesday: Nearly better. Dinner and Harry Potter tonight, yay! Pretty good night.

An Epic Conflict...

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:59:03 GMT

... A war of good versus evil, right versus wrong... a struggle of life and death... ugh. I hate being sick.

"This is an important message from Sprint, your wireless phone provider."

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 20:47:42 GMT

So begins a voicemail I got on my mobile this morning. The amusing thing is, they aren't. I have "Verizon" printed on my phone, and they're the ones who get my money every month. After a short and very confused call to the number they left (made more confusing by the construction noise in the background), the operator ventured that perhaps someone else gave my number as a contact number. I must say, this is the first wrong number call I've gotten from a phone company. I'd expect them to know who their own subscribers are.

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 06:39:07 GMT

A good day today. Dance class was fun once again. I have new(-ish) shoes today. My regular shoes aren't so good for dancing, as the soles have too much traction. This weekend, I found a pair of shoes at Goodwill that suit better. They don't fit exactly right, so I might end up buying a pair of dance shoes off the net. I'll give this pair another session or two.

Afterward, there was peace and brotherhood night at Enigma. Which of course means nuclear war! I came in a bit late, so I wasn't in either of the two giant games going on. Instead, I ended up playing a couple of games of Guillotine. Very fun. The first game, one of the players managed to get what would have been -14 points in grey cards. But he had an action card that instead made them worth +6. I was poised to get rid of his action card, thereby giving him -20 points with a single card. (I've never seen anything like that in a Guillotine game before.) But he ended the game just before I could. A very dramatic game.

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 06:22:28 GMT

Yoinked from thelastmehina</a> :

-----------------
You can ask me 1-7 questions.

No matter how random, revealing, rude, naughty or pointless, I promise to answer them 100% truthfully. There's a decent chance I might tell you to fuck off, or that it's none of your business, because I'm sweet like that. Or I might answer privately. Who knows?

Repost this to see what others ask you

-----------------
I'll even go one better. I'll skip thelastmehina</a>'s "might tell you to fuck off", and promise to answer any question that I can.

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 07:05:40 GMT

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 04:26:46 GMT

Observation: There's a lot more women than men in a dance class. Good for me, but the unaccompanied ladies have to sit out half the time. Then again, dancing was never about equality. All in all, I like the class.

Insightful Political Commentary

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:59:43 GMT

http://www.ozyandmillie.org/2005/om20050830.html

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 07:10:15 GMT

Neat stuff today. First, an earthquake - haven't felt one of those in a while, and this one was nice. Then this evening, beautiful clouds in the sky from the exhaust plume of a rocket. Oh, and a good lunch. Leftovers from the lovely dinner I had last night. There's enough left that I think I can get lunch on Friday out of it, too.

Shiny!

Sat, 03 Sep 2005 00:24:58 GMT

Some background first. Some two or three months ago, I ordered three 4x4 matrix switch units from a company called "Techrecovery". I won't buy from them again. First, they lost our order. Then when the order was resubmitted, somehow they only got an order for one unit, not three. (Could have been a problem on our end, but still annoying.) Finally, even though they /told/ me that the units were in stock, when I called later to see what the status was, they told me they were waiting on a part. So, don't buy from Techrecovery.

It was one week before I /needed/ these switches, and I wasn't going to get them. So I put in another order with a company called "Test Equipment Solutions Today". They responded promptly, notifed me when the switches shipped (and sent a tracking number!), and got the switches to me quickly. So I like them. Buy from Test Equipment Solutions.

Anyway, up to the present. Today, I got a nice shiny yo-yo from T.E.S.T.! I like being bribed. Even if it's with a cheap plastic yo-yo with a logo on it. (But it even lights up when it spins! Shiny!) :)

Home

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 05:06:49 GMT

Busy, busy. After ANITA landed, a group of us decided to try to track it down. (The official recovery team had left long before, of course.) We ended up on a muddy dirt road, with one of our cars stuck. The mass of us working together managed to get it out. I served as part of the vital ballast team. After we were free of the mud pit, we looked at the map and decided "Hey, the balloon should only be about five miles away. Maybe we can see it from the top of that ridge!" So we hiked to the top of the ridge, and there was a great view. We didn't see the balloon, though. On the way down, we came across a deer skeleton, perfectly white and clean. Then, on the way back, I saw a full double rainbow that stuck with us for a great distance. I think the trip was worth it.

Monday we packed. Amazingly, we did it all in one day. Now, everything is stuffed in crates or tied to pallets, awaiting a truck to move it home. Me, I drove home today with the other two UCLA crew members. Long drive, but now I'm home. Yay!