tgif!

today was a good day.

(1) worried about algebra on account of possibly writing up stuff on the board i didn't want to, but he lectured the whole time and didn't ask anyone to present anything -- i like that

(2) later tonight, we had early dinner at jared's house -- quiche... very good! and it was free b/c we had a prospective student visiting (so the dept. foots the bill!) turns out the prospecive is a friend of my friend alina (budapest semester friend) who helps plan the nebraska math conference i went to last year and i had actually met her (through alina) there in lincoln a year ago... she was very nice.

(3) after jared's (dinner and playing catchphrase for a bit), eric had a band concert. the first half was a high school band whose conductor plays clarinet in eric's band. the second half was his crew. i heard his 3rd horn parts on several songs between classes and going to jared's, so then it was fun again to put it together with the whole band later... my favorite is a tune called "loch lomond" one of the other bands played last semester, and halfway through the horns come in playing "danny boy" which eric thinks is hilarious.. he actually made a face at me just before they came in with that from across the place.

(4) after all of the above, i took eric back to his dorm to change out of his tux, then we went stargazing... halfway to where we go, we realized we left the battery pack for my telescope on my bookshelf, by the charger, so we had to operate it manually... still, we looked at the moon, then found the NGC1977 nebula again (in orion's sword), then saturn and then jupiter.. jupiter's moons were arranged far differently than we'd ever seen before... usually they're pretty much in a straight line, and this time 3 were and a 4th was way off to the side... go figure.

having gotten frustrated with the imprecision of operating the scope manually, we put it up and used my star chart to find all the constellations we possibly could. winners are: Gemini, Auriga, Orion, Perseus, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Monoceros, Cassiopeia, Cephus, Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), Ursa Major (Big Dipper), Draco, Bootes, Corona Borealis, Virgo, Leo, Corvus, Crater, Cancer, and Hydra.... and the “winter hexagon” made up of Sirius, Procyon, Pollux, Castor, Capella, Aldebaran, and Rigel. very cool indeed.

so happiness all around... i was also thrilled to get paid today... i'm tired of my glasses since the antireflective coating is gradually scratching off, so i figured i'd order contacts online... *after* i got past the payment screen on the website i was ordering from, it asked for my eye doctor's name to verify the presciption. so here i have already processed my info, and they want that... fine... then i get an email later from the website with a scan of a form my eye doctor filled out saying "the last time i prescribed contacts for this patient was in '02" and a followup note from the website saying "your order has been denied."... blah. my memphis eye doctor retires in april, and the next i'll be there is in july... i guess maybe i need to just visit the walmart optometrist or something and get them to prescribe me some. we'll see.

reading for a bit... then sleep... getting my car a checkup tomorrow and lots of homework... dude. night.