muah laptop!

I just bought a Dell Inspiron 6000. Specs: 1.86 Ghz Pentium M, 60 GB Hard drive, 1 GB RAM, 128 MB ATI graphics card, DVD DL burner, with a spare 9 cell battery and a 3 year Accident coverage.

What I need now is a laptop case (Case Logic Koskin Notebook Case, KNC2 ) which i tracked at walmart.

and in the future, a wireless networking router. I also need to buy an external hard drive for my music and other data files!

NUMBER27 / WordCount Conspiracy

NUMBER27 / WordCount Conspiracy

This is pretty interesting too!

To-do list of sorts

1. Finish my poster for Trento


2. Finish my paper for Trento (this is almost done)


3. Send in final ORSS app


4. Clean and organize my room


5. Work on my new laptop when I get it


6. Try to salvage a couple of friendships(this'll take a while and/or might not happen)


7. Call Sunny


8. Call Andi


9. Figure out what's up with Doll. I haven't talked to her for a couple of months now..


10. Finish A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson( this is a wonderful book. a must read.)


11. Figure out how and when to get up to Manhattan to see my family. Before Trento.

Well, this is as far as I can remember. I'll add to it when I have to do more things.

Culmination of my summer research

I spent the last month and a half writing up this article that needs to get published and a poster presentation for Trento. This is the final product after lots and lots of editing!

My article titled "A solution approach to high alkali content borate glasses" and my poster presentation with the same title which is a summary of the paper with prettier graphs..

Thinking of good times..

This weekend has been different. I did stuff but then I had a lot of time to myself too. This is the first weekend when my roomies weren't around all the time. I could have asked people to come over and hang out. But I took a lot of alone time instead. Sean, Britta and me saw Bewitched on Friday. It was relatively good.. We got back and hung out at Sean's till 3 am and then I left to go sleep. Saturday, Jojo and me were supposed to hang out but that didn't happen. Instead I spent time playing around with my brand new Dell Inspiron 6000, and installing software on it. Kelly came by later in the evening and then we went to eat to Nothing But Noodles which was good. Another one of those non-date dates. We caught up with things happening in our lives. We bumped into Sean and Britta at Best Buy and then hung out there and the mall till 9. We rented After the Sunset which we watched later after getting back. It was a bad movie, why would directors make such movies?!?! After they left, I was awake till 2am and around that time, Kristin walked into my room because she didn't think I would still be awake. Hehe..I was. We talked for a while and hung out till 3 am with Catie. When I woke up in the morning, I saw that I had messages from Sunny that she was close to Cedar Rapids and she wanted to eat with me. I was so excited to see her again. Me and Kristin met them at Fiesta Del Sol and ate lunch with Sunny, Alex, her sister and dad. It was fun. They came back to our apartment and we hung out for a while before they left. Apart from that nothing much has happened today. I hung out with Sean too for a while. I wish I could have seen Britta today but she didn't really have time to see me..Big news for this weekend is that two of my friends are dating again. I knew it was coming and I am happy for them. Lucky!

Now to what I really wanted to blog about. Bewitched had a nice soundtrack which included some good jazz/swing songs. I heard them and missed Andi a lot. I love dancing with her. We are so incredibly compatible in swing. We can do stuff that only we can do with each other. I hear swing music and always think of her. One of my favorite songs to dance to is Bobby Darin's Beyond the Sea. We always request that song when we go to the Top of the Five.. So, the one thing that will always remind me of her is swing apart from her big beautiful smile.. Look at our pictures together and you see what I mean about her smile..

In short, I still miss her.

This is Britta and Sean in case you were wondering who they are:

i just uploaded some pics on Joy's Odds and Ends. Check em out!

[Listening to: Symbiont - Celldweller - Celldweller (5:27)]

a mixed sort of day

I didn't have a very good day at research. Doc might be a little dissappointed or frustrated with me or both. I think I should do better. *sigh* I think my paper is pretty good now. But it took quite a lot of work. And he thought I should have been more attentive to details and been more critical of my own writing. What he doesn't realize is that I am critical of my writing. I know when it's mediocre. But I worked on it. And it got better with a little guidance. Anyway, I have to finish up my poster presentation that I will be doing at the Borate Conference 2005 in Trento, Italy. I think I'm mostly done with that too. A lot of it was cut and paste from the paper i wrote. I'll put the paper and presentation up sometime too.. And then asked me if I wanted to stop work because he didn't think I could do much after Italy. I guess that's sort of true. I don't have enough time for an independent project but I can do something else. He wants me to start my honor's thesis writing. That's a good idea. And I'm not going to Canada. Italy is good enough anyway.

And then I came back and worked out. I could do only 1.25 miles before I had to stop because I had side stitches again! But that's after 4 days of no exercising. I guess it was coming. I did get in a lot of weights. I did more that usual. And then played racquetball with Sean. That was good. And to end the evening, I spent a couple of hours with Jessi hanging out and drinking Jasmine tea in her chinese tea set. It was good to see and talk to her. I introduced her to PostSecret and she loved it. She is also incredibly tanned from nannying the kids because she is taking them to swim. I was amazed! Anyway after 20 mins of word association with her, I came up so that she could go to bed. And I have been chilling in my room since. And swapping covers with Megan. hehe..

I suppose that is a decent update for today..I need to call Andi sometime.

[Listening to: Rhythm Made Me Do It - Shania Twain - Send It... With Love (3:51)]

PostSecret selections from June 19, 2005

I wish for that all the time!

Courtesy: Postsecret

[Listening to: Breathe In - Frou Frou - Details (4:28)]

A weekend in Chicago

I had to go up to Chicago to apply for an Italian visa in person. That was incredibly annoying. This has been the most assanine consulate/embassy i have dealt with. So after panicking a bit figuring out how to get there and when to go up, I found out that Chris was going up to Chicago to see his sister performing in a reggae band. I also called Andi and made sure that she and her family was ok with my staying with them for the weekend. It was fine, I knew it would be because her family really likes me :)!

         So, I left on Friday at 6 much to the dissappointment of Britta due to the fact that we couldn't hang out this weekend. And of course, something had to go wrong. Chris never read his directions, so we missed the highway we were supposed to be on completely and only realized that we were not going in the right direction after I called Andi. That was funny but it made Chris and his girlfriend miss the concert and they turned into a taxi service just for me. that might go on the good ones list! Anyway, I got to Batavia, and Andi and her mum picked me up. The weekend passed being quite mellow. I didn't do much. I came in too short a notice for Andi to drop her jobs.. Next time, things should be more planned. We did spend some time together, although I wish we could have spent some more.. I was kinda dissapointed when we couldn't go swing dancing on sunday to the lake front thing, but i got over it and we went shopping and biking instead. maybe i'll head up there sometime again and we can do it then. we thought magaret(andi's sis) and her bf to swing last night. I did do a little bit of swing with her which was great because I miss it and her a lot!

         Of course, the visa adventure. I go up there by train and then walk to the consulate. it was a wonderful day, so the walk was great! The moment i get up to the consulate, i see that it's a small office setting. that's the smallest diplomatic office i've ever seen. hehe.. he said that i didn't have the right paper work and i need more things. Well, i would have brought them if they had responded to my email or fax about it. I even tried to call them. Those damn fools! They don't even take calls. What the hell is up with that? So eventually after getting my bank statement and then getting my medical insurance faxed to them, he is satisfied. He said that it will take a week to process. I hope it get to me soon because I need it in a couple of weeks.. I spent the rest of the time there walking around. I ate at an Israeli restaraunt with Andi's dad who works in downtown Chicago. After that I went to the Virgin Megastore and the Millenium Park. I walked around Mich Ave too. I have pictures that I will put up soon. Andi dropped me off today morning at the greyhound station and then waited with me the whole time till the bus came. I was happy that she came and saw me off. Although that made her miss her morning run, I hope she was able to go later.. I atleast I got quite a few hugs in this weekend. The hug quota is satisfied for another few days. lol!

The trip back to Cedar Rapids was long but I tried to sleep most of the way. Greyhound would be fine if it didnt take so much of time. It took me 7 hours to get to Cedar Rapids instead of the normal 3.5 hrs. But I got to walk around downtown Iowa City during the lay over there..

And I'm back now. I can sleep in my own bed. I re arranged my room somemore. And I hung out with Britta and Sean. So, I've had a good long day. I hope the rest of the week goes fine. I have a lot of work ahead in my presentation and paper for the conference.. Let's see what tomorrow brings. And tomorrow's Wednesday lunch is Indian food! yay!

[Listening to: Come Downstairs And Say Hello - Guster - Keep It Together (5:16)]

My selections from this week's PostSecret

Another one of those pee-poop ones..






I hope this worked...

PostSecret

Bloopers from Glass research at Coe College

While Calibrating DSC

Doc: So, how�s the baseline coming?
Grant: It still has the large curve.
Doc: Well, did it shift at all?
Grant: No, it�s the same as last time��.
That�s because we didn�t change it.


Mario: I don�t like the sound of the beads sitting around for a
few days.
Brad: Well what do you want me to do with them?
Jim: Desicatize the beads.
Brad: Is that a word?
Mario: That is why my students need more english classes.



Doc: Where�s Trent?
Student: What time is it?
Doc: 10:30 a.m.
Student: Well he isn�t expected for another half hour.



Sagnik: I love polishing, La la La la la. I will go check my email.
Jim: (by the polisher) Boy, this is wet here, what the hell is going on, did I do something?
Sagnik: (in computer lab) I love email, I don�t have any worries in the world when I check my email.
Mario: What the hell is this? Why is there water spewing all over my lab�.. Sagnik!!!


(Grant & Allen trying to roller quench, but something is wrong)
Grant: Doc, something is wrong with the roller quencher.
Doc: Well who used it last?
Allen: Biswas and Kristen were the last to use it.
(Doc talking to Biswas and Kristin)
Doc: So, did you use the roller quencher?
Biswas: No, it was not me.
Kristen: Yeah, I used it earlier this morning.
Doc: Well what did you do?
Kristen: I did �(proceeds to tell Doc what she did), Jim is the one who taught me how to use it.
Doc: Ah, Now I know why.*
*Not all text is historically accurate




(Just a regular day, and Biswas needs to use the roller quencher for his sample)
Biswas: Doc really must trust me to let me do research all on my own without Trent babysitting me.
(Biswas proceeds to prepare to quench his sample, he even practices a few times to help his speed)
Biswas: Okay, let�s do this..(Biswas opens the furnace and with lightning speed pulls his sample out and empties it into the roller quencher)
Biswas:Yeah,,, that�s what I�m talkin �bout.
(Soon after Biswas�s world crashes around him as he notices he never turned on the roller quencher and his sample is just sitting there, cooling on top of the rollers)

(Jim is preparing to do z-mapping on a sample he just got done blasting with a laser, he is extremely excited because one, he got to play with a laser and two, he is learning how to z-map)
Tim: Do you know where in the sample there is damage?
Jim: Yeah, (as he is pulling the glass out of the envelope) There is a crack down the middle because upstairs we�.(he stutters randomly about his project) But at least the sample is still intact.
(Jim drops the sample and it breaks on the table below him)
Jim: Damn, at least it was intact.

If you have questions about the stuff involved. Leave comments and I'll clarify.
There will be more. And I'll put them up as them come! Cheers!

Start Small

The best way to go about it is to start with baby steps. Try running half a mile and then start increasing distance as you get more comfortable with running. Music helps me take my mind off the fact that I’m getting tired. It helps me focus on something different. One pointer is to stretch before and after. You’ll be able to run better and then feel less sore later..

See more progress on: Start running

And so the summer begins

I guess a lot has happened since the last time I blogged. I moved out of my home of a year and into an apartment with 3 girls. My parents were mildly curious because they thought I might have an interesting time sharing a bathroom with a girl. hehe..I don't think there is anything I haven't seen, so I shouldn't be caught unawares or embarrassed. The reason why I am living with these three girls is Kristin. I haven't seen for a year and I thought we could catch up and hang out to make up lost time. She is also one of my best friends. So far, I haven't done much with her. She hangs out a lot with Dana who is probably her best friend here. So, it's a little hard to get her by herself except for a couple of hours every other day. I hope we get to actually talk sometime. I think that would be nice. Sharing living space with three people is interesting because it's all about compromise and patience. We have communal food and personal food. That's a good thing because we don't eat the same food. Kristin is also the only one who can actually cook. So, I've had a few cooked meals with her. I suppose that's good for the people in the apartment.

More about the apartment and my room.. The apartment has 4 individual bed rooms(duh!), two restrooms(one with a bathtub and one without), a common big kitchen which comes furnished, and a living room. It's a big apartment and I like the space. It's a vast difference from my single last year. Mind you, I loved my single. I got tons of privacy and didn't have to worry about having guests in my room till late. hehe..that's for people in the likes of Britta ;). But I still get a single bed room which is good because most of my stuff is in there. I am still in the process of unpacking because I have a ton of stuff. It took me two days with the help of three people and their cars. I think the funniest part of moving was my entertainment centre strapped on top of Jake's Cherookee. The last day of moving, we had a tornado warning go off as i got done moving. I was on the phone with Andi at the time sirens went off and I had to hang up quick and run back to the apartment in the pouring rain. And ofcourse as usual, we had to hang out in the basement till the warning expired. Since, the caf was not open anymore after May term ended, I had to eat out the next few days. I had too much of wendy's and taco bell for a weekend. I went out and got groceries worth a 100 bucks. I still have them after a couple of weeks, so it's money well spent for the most part. I also bought a 1 gb flash drive and a mouse because I had been using a borrowed mouse for over a year.

So, ends this saga of moving..

Google shares surge to new highs after stock report | CNET News.com

Google shares surge to new highs after stock report | CNET News.com


I feel stupid, stupid, stupid for not buying shares! Well, I suppose I had more money to invest. I'm a poor college student after all. LOL!