Tuesday, October 28th, 2003 at home in Houston, TX (although 'home' is a different home than the last time I wrote).

I write this in commemoration of my first time being totally doped up on drugs. As I type, I'm waiting for the Vicadin to take effect. I have a particularly bad case of pharyngitis (sore and swollen throat) where even liquids hurt to swallow. The doctor prescribed said medicine so that I wouldn't get anymore dehydrated and hungry than I already am. Eh, I wonder how long it will take?

Well, it's half an hour later (I've been instant messaging with a friend). I don't think it has all kicked in yet. But, I'm getting there.

So, I live by myself now. I moved out from my old place (with a roommate) at the end of July. I live even closer to school (4 blocks instead of 12 or so) than I did before. It has been really nice, though the dishes still don't get done by themselves. :)

My name appeared on a published paper for the first time (or will do so, officially, soon). You can read the paper in its pre-print format. The pre-print server exists so people can announce results even before the paper has undergone full peer-review. The paper should be officially published in Physical Review Letters sometime in the next few months.
You might ask what I actually did on this paper and it would be a reasonably legitimate question. Well, the paper is on the optical imaging of plasmas. I had something to do with the 'optical' part since I helped write the LabView code to run the intensified CCD camera we use in the experiment. I also had a hand in selecting the camera in the first place. I guess I can thank my time at Lockheed for the LabView expertise because that's when I first learned it.

I'm planning on visiting Keith in Arizona for Thanksgiving this year. Keith is going through Army specialist training in counter-intelligence at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista so he can't leave the immediate vicinity of Sierra Vista. But, he does have that weekend off, so I'm going to go to him so we can hang out for the first time since May, before he left for boot camp. Perhaps we'll do some hiking...we'll certainly have a lot of catching up to do. The best we've done since May is a few, not-too-long phone conversations, some snail mail letters, and sporadic e-mail.

Well, the drug has kicked in enough that I'm going to try eating something (I've already downed half a bottle of Gatorade!). I'll start with apple sauce (that's safe) and work my way into some pumpkin pie followed by chocolate ice cream. Then, just to see how much my reflexes are being affected, I'm going to (try to) juggle.

Wednesday, April 16th, 2003 at home in Houston, TX.

I just realized that last entry was written the day before I broke my left wrist laying out in ultimate frisbee. :) It's easy to smile at now that the injury is well in my past. I'm back to playing frisbee all-out. In fact, I've been to several ultimate tournaments this spring. I've also added 5 states to my States Visited list in the process.

I also have an advisor now. I've been working with Tom Killian part time for the past few months and will start full time in the second week of May. We study cold atoms using various types of spectroscopy. That means that we observe the light emitted or absorbed by strontium atoms in order to understand their behavior at cold temperatures. Cold, in this case, is a temperature very close to absolute zero. For comparison, room temperature is about 300 degrees Celsius warmer than our atoms. :) We also hope to create cold plasmas. Plasmas, like the surface of the sun, are more commonly hot and diffuse. That work should be fairly exciting as very little is known about the behavior of plasmas that are cold and dense.

Personally, I will be working on building a laser to begin with. It is possible to construct a laser so that it will attract atoms to its intensity maximum (effectively the center of the laser beam). In more technical terms, the electric field created by the laser creates a potential well in which atoms can be trapped. This optical dipole trap will be used to help other ongoing experiments in our lab.

Also since I last wrote, I bought 1 new car, had 0 girlfriends, drank about 8 beers, ran 2 legs of a campus-wide relay race, acquired 3 new plants, and turned in about 25 problem sets.

Sunday, January 13th, 2003 at home in Houston, TX.

I've been thinking about the nature of blogs lately. When I first started surfing the world wide web, one of the things I did most often was take random walks through cyberspace. One site would lead to another which would lead yet another and so on. As the web matured, sites became more "professional" and specialized. What I mean is that each page tended to contain links only for things directly related to the subject. Thus, it became harder to take a random walk that landed you in completely unexpected locations because arriving at a new site wouldn't necessarily yield a whole lot of information unrelated to what you had already perused.

With the rise of blogs, I think things are more similar to earlier days. Blogs are specialized to a _person_ and his/her musings, not to a subject. Hence, the topic of "conversation" can veer dramatically from day to day. For you and me, this means that when we follow a link to a particular entry in a blog, not only do we find the related tidbit we expected from clicking that link, but also a random assortment of other information that we weren't expecting. As a result, it is again easy to take random walks across cyberspace because something "new" and tangential to your current topic can catch your eye on each new blog you visit.

I suppose this page that I've put up is a blog of sorts, if only infrequently updated. This particular entry is a change from this page's past behavior. However, I expect that I will return the page to "normal" behavior. I don't publicly muse upon random topics all that often.

Oh yeah, classes start again tomorrow. :)

Saturday, December 14th, 2002 on Continental flight 1753 from Houston to Sacramento.

Well, I'm in transit again. It's really the first time I've gone anywhere since I was at the Harvest Moon ultimate tournament in Arkansas at the beginning of November. Although Austin counts as "away from Houston," it's becoming a routine trip, kind of like driving from the bay area to Grass Valley to visit the family.

I'll be in California for exactly two weeks. The first few days back will be spent in the bay area seeing friends; the rest of it will be with my family in Grass Valley. I'm really looking forward to geographic relief and seeing mountains again. The closest that I have come since moving to Houston in August was the ultimate tourney in Arkansas. I visited the Ozarks for the first time then; they were really pretty, covered in fall colors.

My first semester of graduate school ended with a bang, literally, the other day when it was thunder-storming very hard while I was taking my quantum mechanics final Thursday morning. I am reasonably optimistic about passing my classes, but it was admittedly a close shave in solid state physics. Why don't I test well? That question continues to plague me. :(

Upon returning to Houston from California, I will promptly leave for Colorado by car, picking up Simine on the way out. We'll spend several days with Ben, Mekayla, and Keith in Boulder during New Year's. It should be an excellent time. Then, I'll come back to start the next semester. The first weekend after classes start, I'll get to visit my 40th (?) state as the ultimate team is going to a tournament in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Currently, these are the states I still haven't visited: Alaska, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama. Notably, they're mostly in the south. Also, I'm not quite certain how I missed North Dakota, Nebraska, and Ohio. I've been north, south, east, and west of all three of them. :)

Ah, breakfast, or I should say "breakfast", is being served now. Time to go do that and then stare out the window some more. Watching landscapes slide by is really the only redeeming feature of flying, other than the obvious part of getting there fast.

Saturday, October 12th, 2002 (no, it hasn't been that long since I updated this; at least it's still 2002) on the couch, at home, in Houston, Texas.

I sure do get around, don't I? At least, you would think so given the places I've written stuff from. Actually, I haven't left town (Houston, that is) more than once in the past 7 weeks. I am beginning to feel a teensy bit antsy. See what being a graduate student does to you? :)

Yes, I am, in fact, a graduate student now and enjoying it for the most part. There are things I could complain about, but enough other people do that in the world, so I'll restrict my complaining to some other forum.

Some of the good things about grad school are that I'm learning lots (that's the point, isn't it?), I'm (still) playing lots of frisbee, and I'm meeting new people. The bad (non-academic) part of grad school is that I've moved away from friends (again!) and miss hanging out with people I know well. This time, however, I'll be in one place longer than I've been any place except with my parents while growing up. That should facilitate lasting friendships. Besides, now that I'm in Houston, I can hang out with Simine more often; she's up at UT Austin doing social psychology. And, during winter break, I expect/hope that I'll get to see Ben, Mekayla, Simine, Keith, and anyone else who fancies hanging out with us in Boulder, CO (most likely) on New Year's Eve.

To fulfill the wanderlust that has been building for me, I am taking a trip to Galveston and the Gulf of Mexico on Monday. I've been meaning to go for a while, but that pesky homework thing has kept getting in the way. The world remains an interesting place to see (as well as to live in), and studying physics shouldn't prevent me from doing so. I'll take all the opportunities I can to see and experience new things.

Am I up to anything else? Well, yes, but I'm not going to detail everything. That leaves nothing to talk about with anyone else. :) E-mail me, and I can tell you the scoop on my roommate, what Ben has been up to at Boulder (fourth-hand, courtesy of his friends' friends who are at Rice), how much I've been running lately, and whether or not it's worth moving to Houston to live (not that you would be pondering such a question, of course...).

Friday, May 24th, 2002 in the basement of Rice House, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.

I'm back to Carleton for my second, and final, visit of the year. The GOP alumni game is tomorrow afternoon. I'm playing as an alum for the first time. It will be fun.
Otherwise, I'm having a blast. I've already played in four frisbee games in two days, driven someone to the airport, talked to lots and lots of people, and gone bowling with physics people. I've forgotten how nice it is to have so many people around willing to do fun things at virtually any time of day or night. I'm also remembering how cool the people at Carleton are; they are a good bunch. I'm not wishing to come back, though. I like living "real" life better than college. It's just the social aspect that I miss.

- In other news, I'm doing "real" work now that the government trusts me. :)
- Troy Wu and I have also started a coed frisbee team called "FauxHammer". Our first tournament is the first weekend in June in Santa Cruz. I'm looking really forward to it; I think our team will do very well.
- I need to figure out my living situation in Houston so that I can begin planning my August move. Details are a bit sketchy right now.
- Finally, I hope my annual summer trip happens. Ben, Mekayla, and I will all be in Northfield this weekend, so that ought to speed up the pace of decision-making. Perhaps I'm too optimistic.

I feel like I should say more, but don't really have anything profound to discuss. So, as someone once said, "if you have nothing to say, say nothing."

Friday, April 12th, 2002 at home in Mountain View.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've actually posted an update. So, where to begin on the news?

I suppose grad school is an appropriate place. After visiting six different schools (and having been accepted to 8 of 9 places I applied), my choice boiled down to the University of Oregon and Rice University. It's not that any of the other places were bad; all were pretty nice, in fact. Oregon and Rice simply sparkled in ways the others didn't. I came home from visits to Eugene and Houston excited and eager for graduate school. Other schools simply didn't have this quality to them.

Rice versus Oregon: Rice was the first place I visited (February 22nd), and all other schools struggled to equal it in my eyes. I tried to normalize for the standard-setting effect. That is, I thought that whichever school I first visited might be the one that made the biggest impression on me. Well, that seemed to be true. But, it also seems to be the case that Rice was a really good school. The main factors I evaluated as I went through the process were the quality of the physics department (research and faculty), how well I got along with professors, how well I liked the current graduate students, how well I liked my fellow prospective graduate students, and the location of the school. Also important was finding a variety of potential research areas. I can't go on to graduate school planning on working with one specific individual, only to find that they no longer have funding or room for more students.

Rice did well in just about every category. I liked many of the people there (students, prospectives, and professors) and there were multiple areas of research that I was interested in. Of note are the atom trapping groups and the extensive opportunities in nanotechnology. The category that Rice was the worst in was location: Houston, TX is very hot and humid in the summer and is a big city in the first place. The opportunity to do recreational things like hiking, mountain biking, exploring, etc... are not as great as more rural areas. It takes distinctly more effort to get out of the city to do such things.

Oregon, on the other hand, had great location. Accessibility to recreational activities was unparalleled at any other school I visited with the exception of the University of Maine (more on that later). The people were nearly as cool as those at Rice (yeah, judging people's "coolness" factor is just a bit subjective), and I enjoyed my visit. Its research was just as varied (if not more) than Rice's. However, my overall comfort level wasn't as high as at Rice. In short, my gut feeling still said Rice despite its shortcoming in the "location" category. I also felt like I would always wonder "what might have been" if I went to Oregon instead of Rice. I don't feel the same way if I go to Rice instead of Oregon. So, I'm going to Rice. :)

I was gone six weekends out of seven: insanity! My first visit was the 22nd of February; my last visit was the 7th of April. I saw more of the business traveler's world than I cared to see. I got so that I could identify many features on the ground from here to Colorado (it helps that I'm rather familiar with said features in the first place). The midwest is more hit-or-miss. And, I barely know anything in the east. The most picturesque place I visited was Maine; I _have_ to return to Acadia National Park soon. Wow, what a park! I also visited Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Virginia, the University of Maine, and Duke University. Stanford rejected me, and I rejected the University of Connecticut and the University of California, Santa Cruz without visiting them. I worked at UConn two summers ago; Santa Cruz didn't have a broad enough spectrum of research, though their campus is beautiful.

Enough about graduate school.
What else have I been doing? Um, the flippant answer is nothing; grad school visits sucked up tons of my time. In reality: Work (btw, still no clearance; we're at 9.5 months). Ultimate frisbee whenever I can. :) Troy Wu and I are putting together a coed club team with the aim of being more competitive than the beginning-level group we've been playing with at the last few tournaments. We have several ladies signed up to play already, but it seems like their college regionals tournament conflicts with our next coed tournament. Damn!
(I think I should mention that both Oregon and Rice have good ultimate teams; Oregon is more competitive, on average, than Rice)
But, I continue to play pickup ultimate a lot. Now that I'm done flying every weekend, I will probably be out four to five times per week. My left-handed backhand is becoming more usable by the day. The lefty forehand works pretty well already (as in, it's probably my best throw when I can use it). My right-handed throws are solid, but not always spectacular. More practice is needed...

My social life might actually gain some much needed continuity now that I'm done flying every weekend. When you only see someone once every two or three weeks, it's difficult to maintain sensible connections. Having met some really cool people playing frisbee, I would like to continue hanging out with them.

Keith wants me to go learn to scuba dive with him. That sounds intriguing and we'll see if we can't fit it in our schedules sometime in the next few months. I'm going to the Tactile Dome at the Exploratorium with Keith and Melissa (and a bunch of other Davisites) tomorrow. I'm also beginning to plan another summer trip to some cool place. If you have any ideas of good places to go in the United States, let me know, though this isn't to say that I don't have any ideas already. All these things mean that I'll continue to be busy; that's good. I wouldn't want to have a boring life or anything. :p

Friday, November 30th, 2001 at home in Mountain View.

Another week of work, another week of life. I watched "Run Lola Run" tonight on DVD. I'm really glad I saw it because it's one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. There were a couple of scenes that really cracked me up, though they probably weren't quite intended to have comedic value. In any case, it's a film better seen than described, so go out and see it. :)

The investigators dug in on the background investigation for my clearance this week (finally!). It took them nearly five full months to get to my paperwork. Apparently, that paperwork inexplicably languished in St. Louis for some undetermined length of time. Hence, I'm further behind in the process than I should be. Regardless, I hope to hear back about my clearance by early next year.

I'm staying home this weekend with absolutely nothing planned. My only regret is that it is supposed to rain all weekend, ruining any chances I might have had to play ultimate frisbee. Alas, I'll have to make up for it next week. I'm really missing playing as frequently as I did while at Carleton. Perhaps I will be able to play in graduate school; I really hope any grad school that I have the opportunity to attend also has a frisbee team. :) Yeah, I'm a frisbee junkie....

Despite my "gripe" about the rain, I'm actually enjoying the variety in the weather. Living in Minnesota for four years acclimated me to such a huge variety of weather that California weather actually bores me most of the time. The rainy season that has just begun is keeping things interesting.

Yeah, the Leonids were cool a couple of weekends back. I managed to sleep through the peak, but was woken up at 3:00 am by my parents who wanted to know where to look. :) Being in Grass Valley that weekend was a stroke of good fortune because I didn't have to deal with all the city lights. I was able to sit inside my living room, staring out the big living room window at the southwestern sky, and watch a good portion of the meteors. In twenty minutes, we probably saw somewhere around a hundred ionization trails from the meteors; there were even a couple big flashes. Methinks this more interesting than the average Fourth of July fireworks show...

Friday, November 16th, 2001 on the Amtrak train to Sacramento.

I seem to like to write while on the train. I suppose there isn't all that much better to do other than staring out the window. But once you've ridden a particular route once or twice, it gets old and you don't need to stare quite as much. Much of the train route overlaps with the drive from Grass Valley (where I grew up) and the bay area anyway. That makes it even less exciting.
Riding the train itself, however, is a blissful experience compared to driving the distance. It takes a little bit longer, but for about $30, perhaps twice as much as I might pay for gas on the round trip, I get peace of mind, power for my laptop, and occasional meetings with interesting people.
Last time I was on the train, I met a girl who I had actually met once at an honor band in high school. We didn't really remember each other, but it was mildly amusing anyway. :)

I'm in the midst of a four day weekend and it's not Thanksgiving. I took the general GRE, a test similar to the SAT but for college graduates, yesterday and decided not to go to work afterwards. Today I was already due to have the day off. Yeah for four day weekends! (I also get one next week because of Thanksgiving).
I've taken two standardized test in the past week. I think I'm done with them for a while. I'm relieved; I hate testing in general and keep trying to come up with ways in which someone's knowledge of a subject can be determined without putting them through a timed, standardized examination. All good answers involve a teacher, or whomever is giving the test, spending a great deal of time to get to know how a student thinks and how they work. We need student-to-teacher ratios of about 5 to 1 for this to really work.

I'm looking forward to the Leonid meteor shower this weekend. It's supposed to be the most spectacular in the last 40 years. Peak rates are predicted to be at least 1500 meteors per hour, with maximums around 4000 meteors per hour possible. The peak will happen around 2 o'clock Sunday _morning_. Hopefully it will be clear in Grass Valley this weekend. Looking outside, though, I don't have my hopes too high; there's a lot of high cloud cover.

Sunday, October 21st, 2001 on the Amtrak train to Santa Clara.

Work on my clearance is proceeding, albeit slowly. Obviously, work updates will stop once I actually have my clearance. There won't be anything that I can say other than that I am employed by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space.
I am currently applying to graduate schools for next fall. I want to have a doctorate in physics. The schools that I've decided to apply to are: Stanford University (applied physics), the University of Oregon, Washington University (St. Louis), Rice University, the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia, Duke University, the University of Maine, and some University of California school (Santa Cruz, Davis, Santa Barbara...?).
Where would I like to go? Um, I'm not sure; a lot depends on who accepts me, what kinds of offers I receive and so on....I've made a point of only applying to schools in places that I wouldn't mind living. Nothing stinks more than ending up somewhere where you're unhappy for six plus years of your life.
I visited Philippe at the University of Oregon this weekend. I even got to visit his intro physics class. That was amusing. I didn't really like how the professor got into conservation laws; he almost sounded like he was reading out of a chapter of one of those bad intro physics books. Bad physics books are alright so long as your professor exists to clarify them; but, if both the book and the professor have a hard time on a topic, then you're in trouble. Do all physics classes start out this badly? If so, no wonder physics is not well-liked.
Oregon was quite beautiful clothed in its fall colors. The temperatures were getting a bit nippy and I could see my breath condensing in the mornings. Cool stuff....makes me realize (yet again) how utterly boring the weather is in the Bay Area. :)
I expect that I won't travel as much in the next couple of weeks. I've been away from home for three straight weekends (Yosemite, Arcata, and Oregon) and I have my subject GRE in physics coming up three weekends from now. I will need to start bearing down on the studying. hmmm....grrr...oh well, it will soon be over, for better or for worse.