hello

(call home earlier)
brother and poncho (our green-winged macaw) (in unison): hello?
me: hi! i heard poncho too, did he know it was me? (laughing)
brother: no, i think the hello was to the walnut he's about to eat... he's going through a greeting his food before he eats it phase

duuuude

"josie and the pussycats" is on the WB right now... never seen it, was going to change channels, but the dude who plays turk in scrubs is in it, so i might just have to laugh at the stupidity for fun :-P

spiderman 2 came out today -- hopefuly seeing it later with ben

do dah.

yay for friends :-)

chatting with scott on IM at present:

smswtshnn: have you talked more with bd?
lkp4242: after i beat him in chess (well during the 2nd game) he got a really bad headache and went to sleep it off an hour ago
lkp4242: we're having lunch at cracker barrel just south of columbus next week tuesday
lkp4242: he insists he's paying
lkp4242: but we talked for 6 hours today
lkp4242: including the chess
lkp4242: (just on the computer)
lkp4242: that's the scoop :-P
smswtshnn: woa, 6 hours
smswtshnn: there aren't many people i could talk to for 6 hours in one day :-)
lkp4242: well both multtitasking
lkp4242: you couldn't talk to me for 6 hours?
smswtshnn: right
smswtshnn: dude
lkp4242: what did you do on the way to delaware?
smswtshnn: i suppose technically we were in the car for how many hours?
lkp4242: 17
lkp4242: you slept parts
smswtshnn: omg
lkp4242: but not 11
lkp4242: :-P
smswtshnn: true
lkp4242: i don't think of that as totaly outrageous
lkp4242: it was random question day
lkp4242: and we made plans for next week
lkp4242: and i beat him in chess
lkp4242: and it was more fun than doing math
smswtshnn: yeah, i guess it's not that outrageous
smswtshnn: why does he insist on paying?
lkp4242: i'll just copy and paste
lkp4242: hang on, let me find it
lkp4242:
~~~~~
BlkDeth 13: I hear ya.
BlkDeth 13: so, i've found 90 bucks cleaning my room today.
lkp4242: wanna share?
BlkDeth 13: and i got paid today.
BlkDeth 13: but.. i dont have that yet.
lkp4242: i'm many times that in the negative
BlkDeth 13: awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
BlkDeth 13: i'll buy you lunch!
BlkDeth 13: *nods*
lkp4242: lol -- for the record, the previous 2 linesfrom me were not meant as begging
BlkDeth 13: I'm aware of that.
lkp4242: just checking :-P
BlkDeth 13: and, for the record, that wasn't an offer. it was a statement.
BlkDeth 13: *HA!
BlkDeth 13: wow, i always win.
lkp4242: so there's no debating with you?
BlkDeth 13: that would be it. yes.
lkp4242: fine fine, then thanks for the of- i mean statement :-P i appreciate it
BlkDeth 13: haha
~~~~~
lkp4242: you've asked two or three times for updates -- is this really that entertaining?
smswtshnn: yes!
lkp4242: because?
smswtshnn: dude, i wish i could be there when you meet bd
lkp4242: because?
smswtshnn: but as like, a fly
smswtshnn: lol
smswtshnn: to "observe"
lkp4242: observe what?
smswtshnn: what you order from the menu
smswtshnn: sorry, that was sarcasm, which i rarely use :-[
lkp4242: sarcasm is funny dude
smswtshnn: i want to make sure he's nice to you!
lkp4242: no, what do you think is going on?
lkp4242: you don't think he will be?
smswtshnn: oh, i'm sure he will be
smswtshnn: but, you know
lkp4242: i hope i'm not boring
lkp4242: but i don't even know what's going on
smswtshnn: you?? boring??
lkp4242: i worry about that frequently dude
lkp4242: i overanalyze every situation ever under the assumption that i'm the least cool person involved
smswtshnn: dude, no way
lkp4242: tht's how i operate
lkp4242: like you and ben and me covered -- lara has NO self-esteem :-P
lkp4242: that's just hidden under trying to be comedian most of the time :-P and hoping to succeed
smswtshnn: well, you usually succeed, so just try not to worry about it so much!
lkp4242: lol
lkp4242: i think i'm past worrying for now
lkp4242: i'll worry tuesday enxt week while i'm driving
lkp4242: i'll call you tues afternoon while i drive through cincinnati and give you the run down ;-)
smswtshnn: well, ben and i think you're cool. who cares what the rest of the world thinks anyway.
lkp4242: lol
smswtshnn: :-) okay?

ok.

done for the day copying and pasting all my conversations to the blog :-P

p.s. note the new blogroll on the bottom of the left column ;-) enjoy!

oh dude

what a day

woke up with grand intentions of working hard on math all day, but really not so much

i solved one problem and then....

"black death" signed online and we chatted from like 3pm til 7:30pm... i did other things in the meantime... like watch tv, color in my coloring book,... but not math

around 7:30 we started playing chess online... game 1: lara has a queen and a king, BD had a king, but i got into stalemate instead of checkmate -- tie game... game 2: lara's losing pieces left and right about about ready to quit when i randomly got a rook in a fortunate position, 1 by 1 took out his major (non-pawn) pieces, and kicked butt...

this brings us to 9pm, when eric signed online to ask me car advice... i'd told him he should get an intrepid of an impala because i like those and so he went to a dodge dealer looking for an intrepid today and saw this: http://www.lasvegaschapman.com/ChryslerJeep/results.asp?StockNumber=PP3181...

Galois1105: well there's a 2004 dodge neon with 10000 miles and list price of $11000 that i found
lkp4242: ooh
lkp4242: neons aren't bad
lkp4242: if you like it go for it
lkp4242: beagley drives one that's a few years old
lkp4242: mostly it's a space thing
Galois1105: and guess what..... it's blue:-)
lkp4242: ooo!!!!
lkp4242: this could be a sign :-)
lkp4242: you should just call me dude
Galois1105: okay
Galois1105: one sec

re: above, the hilarious thing is, i'd told eric back in april that i've had a few random dreams about being on the roadtrip in july... nothing profound, just do dah do dah, we're riding in the car singing with a CD driving through desert or something or we're near the car at the grand canyon (which my mind's completely made up since i've never been there)... but every single time i've dreamt about being on the trip, the car is blue...
note: the car in the above link is indeed BLUE

now for a non-car, non-internet thing... the whole time eric and me were on the phone just now, his sister (still in HS) was in the background showing him new high heels she got that light up with lights that look like fireworks or something and he's relaying her comments to me:

rachael (eric's sister): see, aren't they cool... does lara think they sound cool?
eric: (repeats)
me: um yeah, but you know what kind of shoes i wear right
eric: yup, guy sandals or none
rachael (in disbelief in the background): lara doesn't wear high heels??? how tall is she?
eric: how tall ae you?
me: 6 foot
eric: she's 6 foot
rachael: (in shock!) ooh
(later... after eric and me talked cars more)
eric: so rachael wants to know where you like to shop
me: for what? for books or for clothes?
eric: it's rachael asking -- for clothes
me: uuh duh, i don't like to shop
eric: see, shelley, lara's doesn't like to shop... she's not a normal girl... she's kinda like... well, she's like me.
(much laughter all around)

that's about as good a summary as it gets :-P

dinner time :-P

fun with cats

prof. szaniszlo back at valpo sent me this link for fun:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/annekebroenink/maukie2.swf

turn your sound on and move the mouse around... i can make the cat do at least 10 different things, can you?

enjoy.

fun with shiny things :-)

eric sent me a delayed birthday present -- check it:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001VUYQS/qid=1088441482/sr=8-6/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i6_xgl60/102-8579828-1736111?v=glance&s=home-garden&n=507846

how much fun is that? :-)

email fun

several weeks ago, google rolled out its new g-mail, and quickly yahoo responded by increasing their standard 6M mailbox to 100M... having 5 active email addresses (rutgers general, rutgers math server, yahoo, excite, hotmail, each for a different purpose), i was curious what the other non-academic email sites would do... and now i have my answer

excite's had a blurb in huge letters for a about a week now "coming soon: your new 125M mailbox! and 10K attachments... coming in september"... geesh... 1.25 times yahoo size, even though they're probably the least popular of the trio (yahoo, hotmail, excite?), but yahoo gave me my upgrade right away... i gotta wait another 2 months for this one (don't get me wrong -- i like excite... i get absolutely no spam there, and they've upgraded quite a bit since i first got an account with them... they're just not an email "supergiant" like yahoo and hotmail)

hotmail sent an email to users this morning announcing that they'll start doing state of the art virus scans on attachements, allow you to send 10K attachments (like yahoo changed at their upgrade) and give you a 250M limit. (stay tuned for details in the next 2 weeks they say... how long will it take? hmmmmm)

ok, seriously, when we've learned to cope with 6M (yahoo), 3M (excite) and with a mere 2M (hotmail) for so long, don't get me wrong, i appreciate the extra space, options -- no complaints... but does anyone find it highly amusing that they're each trying to come up with an insanely bigger number than the previous competitor who just rolled something out? i've gotten good at managing my 3/6/2M inboxes... now having 125/100/250M?... dude... more space is good -- this is just crazy =P especially when it feels like the bigger numbers are there to compensate for the fact that these other servers weren't prepared to make the upgrade as quickly and smoothly as yahoo did... hmmmm

that's my thought for the morning -- finishing the may/june "night sky" (astronomy magazine) issue, breakfast, and then getting to work for the day =P

the end.

fascinating

http://www.badastronomy.com/

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lkp 42 42 42: hey john, so FYI, in the spirit of qual studying, scott and me are having a "complex integral beatdown party" at ihop either tues or thurs this week
lkp 42 42 42: i can keep you posted for further details if you'd like
lkp 42 42 42: the idea is just to do a ton of them until we remember how :-)
lkp 42 42 42: ...and eat pancakes

kinda makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over and make you wish you were a math ph.d. student, eh? ;-)

accomplishments of the day

(1) woke up before noon
(2) went to church and actually had 3 other math grad students come with me! (paul, sujith, and colleen)
(3) grocery shopping (this is majorly exciting because i have a weird paranoia about going to the grocery store by myself, or once there about dealing with shopping carts -- a liter of egg drop soup for $1.50 makes me happy though :-) )
(4) finished reading the millenium problems (as if you can't tell by the previous entry
(5) talked on the phone with heather miller for an hour
(6) talked on the phone with eric for an hour
(7) talked on the phone with roommate for half an hour
(8) talked on the phone with jenny lemahieu for half an hour (first i'd talked to her since her heart surgery 4 weeks ago)
(9) had my room shown off to prospective new tenant... dude...
(10) talked on the phone with tammy for an hour

[by this point, my ear hurt from being attached to the cell for 4 hours straight more or less, but they were quite the quality chats :)]

tammy quote: "i don't know what to do around girly girls because really, i'm not one, and i completely don't understand... what's up with them?"

(11) dinner: egg drop soup, some sushi, and some raw mushrooms -- doesn't that sound great?
(12) finished reading "the spy issue" of mental floss (back issue from mid-2002)

what's next on the list? more fun reading of course! astronomy magazine, this week's issue of time, other astronomy magazine, or the science of God... your guess is as good as mine =P

later dudes.

the millenium problems (what's going on with math and why you, who are friends of an aspiring mathematician, should care =P)

just finished the latest book on my personal reading list (the millenium problems by keith devlin). this calls for a book report of sorts :-) enjoy, and feel informed, evn if it is just vaguely, at my summary of a summary of what hardcore math people are interested in these days =P

question: what are the millenium problems?

answer: back in 1900, david hilbert, mathematician extraordinaire, made a list of the top problems he'd like to see solved in the next century... all but one were solved. in hilbert's spirit, the clay mathematics institute made a list of seven "millenium problems" which they presented in 2000 as the new hilbert's list of big important hard problems to solve. the remaining hilbert problem is one of the seven, along with 6 other significant questions. As a measure of recognition of how difficult these problems are CMI (clay math institute) has put a $1million bounty on a complete solution to each of these problems...

with how increasingly abstract and specialized research mathematics is, devlin's book is an overview of each of the problems for mathematicians who are not specialists in these areas as well as for ambitious non-mathematicians... his descriptions of the first 5 problems are accessible... of the last two, he even admits "these are really hard to put in simple terms... good luck with these last 30 pages, and don't feel bad if you give up"...

all that said, here's the list of the millenium problems, very simply what they're about (lara's even more simplified summary of devlin's summary), and why you should care (besides the fact that you know me (an aspiring mathematician) and probably others of my math friends and this is what we all care about :-P)

here goes:

(1) the Riemann Hypothesis:

in simple math terms: all zeros of the Riemann zeta function (other than the negative even integers) lie on the line Re(z) = 1/2 in the complex plane

in relatively non-math words: there's a particular equation number theory people are interested in, because if it does what they think it does, we know a lot about how the prime numbers are distributed

why do you care? if this equation can be solved and the prime numbers do what mathematicians think they do, this affects the way internet security works (which is based on the idea that it's really hard to factor/predict insanely large prime numbers)

(2) Yang-Mills Theory and the Mass Gap Hypothesis:

in simple math terms: for any compact, simple, guage group, the quantum yang-mills equations in four-dimensional euclidean space have a solution that predicts a mass gap

in relatively non-math words: physics is looking for a grand unified theory of everything that accounts for the mechanics (which we witness day to day), quantum theory (what happens on a tiny scale inside atoms/etc.), and relativity (what happens on a giant cosmic scale)... physicists operate on many assumptions that according to all scientific evidence are indeed true... however, the math to support what modern physics is working in doesn't exist yet... mission: fill in the missing mathematics!

why do you care? solving the yang-mills equations would give the mathematical backing for some things physics knows and uses on a regular basis... being able to give the mathematics behind the mass gap hypothesis, would be significant for physicists as well though, explaning why the phenomenon that m=E/c^2 (related to E=mc^2) seems to imply you can get mass from pure energy... however there's a nonzero minimum energy level needed to produce such mass... solving the mass gap hypothesis would account for why this is so, which is currently a mystery.

(3) P vs. NP:

in simple math terms: can all problems that can be solved in nondeterministic polynomial (NP) time really be solved in polynomial (P) time?

in relatively non-math words: if there is a "P" time algorithm to solve a problem, no matter how much data you give it, a computer should be able to solve it in a non-ridiculous amount of time. however, many problems that businesses need to solve or approximate from day to day (even scheduling workers/tasks optimally) are "NP" problems, meaning even just adding slightly more data/workers to sort makes the computer solving time go up ridiculously. the idea of this problem is to determine if such "ridiculous to compute" problems really do have "P" time algorithm solutions that we just haven't found yet

why do you care? if P=NP we know that algorithms exist to solve things more efficiently, and this is a good thing :-)... if not, then it's ridiculous to keep working on finding polynomial algorithms for some tasks because they don't exist (and for the record, the money's on the latter being true)... in a word, it's all about time management

(4) the Navier-Stokes Equations:

in simple math terms: the navier-stokes equations given initial conditions can be solved for all times t 0<=t<=T where T is very small. mathematicians want to know if a general solution exists and if so what is it?

in relatively non-math words: the navier-stokes equations describe how liquid moves in 3 dimensions. however, no one can pinpoint how to solve them even though we know they work... in that respect, kinda like the issue with yang-mills above =P

why do you care? if solved, navier-stokes would give immense insight into the dynamics fluid flow over surfaces -- a solution could result in better design of planes or boats... or in better understanding how blood moves inside us leading to new life-saving devices we don't know enough to make yet!

(5) the Poincare conjecture:

in simple math terms: can a 3-manifold have the loop shrinking property and NOT be equivalent to a 3-sphere?

in relatively non-math words: in studying topology, the above conjecture has been proven for 2 dimensions and for 4 and higher dimensions... 3 is the missing gap no one seems to fill in

why do you care? if, as suspected, it turns out to be true, we finally fill in a long missing piece of the puzzle of topology... if for some weird reason it turns out to be false (although all the money's on it being true), then there are some really quirky things going on in the universe

(6) the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture:

in simple math terms: the existence of many solutions to a particular equation mod p (for many primes p) guarantees the original equation (not mod-anything) has infinitely many rational solutions

in relatively non-math words: in algebra you learned how to "solve" equations for x and y (e.g. x^2 + 5x -6 = 0... x = ?)... this is basically a question about solving more complicated equations where we just want to know answers where x and y are rational (can be written as fractions)

why do you care? this problem has to do with elliptic curves... in the spirit of being as vague as possible, answering more questions about elliptic curves would have repurcussions in stuff anywhere from number theory to geometry to cryptography to the mathematics of data transmission... vague description, but useful :-P

(7) the Hodge conjecture

in simple math terms: every harmonic differential form (of a certain type) on a non-singular projective algebraic variety is a rational combination of cohomology classes of algebraic cycles

in relatively non-math words: you learned at some point (i hope) that math equations can describe particular objects you can "see" (x^2 + y^2 = 25 for example describes a circle of radius 5)... an algebraic variety is the "object" described by a system of equations -- maybe you can visualize it maybe you can't... this conjecture guesses that a particular type of algebraic variety (call them H-objects) can all be built out of really simple building blocks, so to speak

why do you care? this is after all the most complicated to explain of the 7... because it seems bizarre anyone could have intuition like this on something so abstract... i can't tell you what good application it would have, but if this turns out to be true it would say a lot about how amazing human intuition can really be :-)

if you're still reading, i'm impressed... don't you feel at least somewhat informed/slightly smart now? to see the "real" versions of the 7 millenium problems, rather than my abstraction of an abstraction, go here: http://www.claymath.org.

later dudes =P

tiiiired

it's been an alright day.

did lots of errands, then scott and me worked at the new starbucks for several hours.

came home, ate dinner, read a little, setup my telescope finally since the motor came back repaired a couple weeks ago... talked to laura felch on IM for the first time in ages; i like talking to her; funny how some friends kinda slip in and out of the picture depending on what's going on... funny in an unforunate way... but the slipping back into the picture is a good thing =)

perfect stargazing weather tonight too, but for some reason, everyone felt the need to work tonight, so i set it up looking out my window... fortunately said window looks west, and at 9-10:30pm, while i was stargazing, that's where jupiter and the moon were.

riddle me this: what does it say of my fine motor skills that i could find jupiter a full 45 minutes before i could get the moon in the viewfinder... that's just sad...

nice and clear though... could see 4 of jupiters moon nicely too... 3 off to the left, one off to the right (only i have a reflective telescope so i guess that means reverse "left" and "right" in real life)... i watched it for quite some time... it was so bright though that i couldn't really make out stripes on jupiter itself even under higher magnification... oh well... it was still beautiful =)

after that i watched the moon for a bit... it's really cool to look at the valleys/craters right on the edge of the shadow =)

then, roommate called me back from earlier and we talked nearly an hour and a half... well maybe not quite that much but definitely more than an hour... i had lots on my mind to vent about and she's good at (a) listening, and (b) sometimes helping me put more precise/clear words on how i feel... yay for roommate =)

tomorrow, colleen's coming with me to church... i went with her to mass in january, and she's coming with me finally now =P... paul and sujith, (both a year ahead of us) are apparently meeting us there too... shall be entertaining to have a whole "rutgers math pew" in church in the AM ;-P

on that note... night y'all =P

llama llove =P

so as promised a few entries ago, scan of the card the parents sent (note: mom gave me a serious card when i saw her in pitt -- this one was my dad's doing even though he didn't actually sign it :-P)










=)

a revolutionary evening

ben and me saw "two brothers" tonight... mostly it made me mad at people in general for being ignorant and destructive... i think that was kinda the point (the movie ends with a conservation message about saving endangered tigers)... the scenery and filming was incredible, but there was onyl one likeable human character out of many many the whole movie. so it goes... it made me mad, but i'm still glad i saw it.

seeing movies isn't all that revolutionary though, so what gives with the title?

so i've been chatting with online friend "black death" since high school... we've agreed to meet up for the first time ever in a week and a half on my drive to memphis... he lives near columbus and i'll pass through there around lunchtime that day anyhow...

realize i've been talking to this guy for 5 going on 6 years now, and in that time up until a couple months ago, i had an online personality, a first name, an email address and that's it... in march or so he sent me a photo...

and tonight i suddenly have his cell number and full name... this will be entertaining to be sure... i'm interested to meet him, but have a hard time with changing friendships, so it's a huge deal in my mind to switch from IM friend (which is completely in my comfort zone) to meeting up (which will be an adventure)... and he wanted to call me tonight and i freaked and turned off my phone, claiming the battery to be dead because i'm not quite mentally ready to take that step yet... i'm not scared of him, i'm working on not being scared of change... probably in the next few days i'll have an interesting chat to tell y'all about :-P

revolutionary indeed.

night y'all.

soaked!

it's been a good day

not productive, but good

talked online for a bit, officially got the call/chat from paul ellis that i'm next year's pizza seminar coordinator, went to panera and barnes and noble with colleen and scott, and now, after running from my car to the house in the rain, i'm drenched

one would think that i could get lots done in a bookstore since it's quiet and filled with books encouraging me to think and be good... guess again.

scott and me first beelined for the kids section where he read me "go dog go" and "a fly went by" (or something similar on the 2nd title)-- both dr. seuss... i got distracted by magazines and other fun... found the "is your mama a llama?" book again and got scott to read another one called "the grapes of math"... it was fun all around. but how much work did i do? 1 problem that i had an idea how to solve before :-P

now dinner, and hopefully seeing "two brothers" with ben when he gets out of class... in a bit (once i have de-soaked) i also just have to scan the birthday card my dad sent this week -- it's great :-)

later dudes =)

on sleep

i need to develop the ability to sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time again, because i can't anymore...

two nights ago i went to sleep at 3:30am and woke up with a jolt at 6:16am convinced that i had slept 15 hours or something ridiculous... looked closer at the clock and realized, no, i really should still be in bed

last night, similar... went to sleep at 4:30am and woke up suddenly at 6:40... was convinced i had slept for 14 hours and started to get up and do stuff, only to realize i'd only been in bed for 2 hours.

even after going back to sleep, both nights i woke up again around 10 and made myself go back to sleep again before getting up noon-ish.

this wouldn't be quite as strange if like i normally got up at 6/7am, but i never do intentionally...

this also wouldn't be quite as bad if i thought i was completely stressed out; but here, i am summer time, with a schedule of "wake up when i want, study some, have some fun with my friends, go to sleep when i'm tired"... it bothers me that i'm yawning all the time and not able to sleep for more than 2-3 hours... maybe i need drugs. =P

this and that

email i got earlier from someone my parents' age: "Lara, Just read your latest email...what a life you live, you go girl! Wish I had
done more of those fun things when I was your age."

question (which i have asked before): do i really lead that exciting a life, or is that just the theme of my generation and the people who tell me such things don't know enough 20-somethings =P? discuss.

in other news...

scott and colleen came over tonight to share pictures (scott got back 3 rolls of film going back to january and colleen got some back from the weekend at the gardens today) and to watch a movie (watched "bend it like beckham")...

at 1am when we were done, we headed for a diner for some late night dinner... there, we ran into ben, jason, and inessa (ben and jason are older math students, inessa just finished undergrad and has been dating jason for years)... we joined them for a bit, enjoyed our evening breakfast food, and then all headed home...

got home to witness a very drunk roommate doing things that hopefully won't happen again before i move out in august =P... who knows... enough said.

on that note, reading myself to sleep... night y'all =P

sadness

i started studying for quals today.

eric and me agreed to start by just working brute force at solving old qual problems from tests from previous years... after 5 hours and solving all of 1 problem on my own, i was mad and ready to throw things and/or cry... ben gave me hints on 2 analysis problems i was mad at, and i called eric to see how he's doing with it... happily enough, his first day at it was similar to mine, which is encouraging... but he's worked at it for a few days already and is a bit ahead of me... i now have thoughts on how to do at least parts of 5 problems, so that's something right?

still... all this is to say, if i work as hard as i'm supposed to, this is going to be a long and extremely frustrating summer of work =(

the end.

in case you were wondering... this is what i do late at night:

BlkDeth 13: ok.. try THIS...
BlkDeth 13: I'm a stud... and you talk to me right before you sleep.
lkp 42 42 42: dude
BlkDeth 13: therefore, your dreams should be SO good.. you'll not wake up till noon.
BlkDeth 13: *nod*
BlkDeth 13: **true story**
BlkDeth 13: (i was running out of serious ideas?)
BlkDeth 13: ((ok, so i wasn't that serious about the scotch either))
BlkDeth 13: *(*i'm a master at sub-thought punctuation*)*
lkp 42 42 42: counterexample: i talked to you last night and woke up after 2.5 hours of being asleep :-P
lkp 42 42 42: so i see (re: punctuation)
lkp 42 42 42: i'm thinking i might just have to look into the drugs i was taking 4 years ago ;-)
BlkDeth 13: Oh.. clearly your thoughts of me overwhelm you.
BlkDeth 13: how can you sleep when your heart keeps skipping a beat?
BlkDeth 13: *snickers*
BlkDeth 13: ok, i gotta go read, or i shall not see my bed tonight.
lkp 42 42 42: lol, you're crazy
BlkDeth 13: **vague shakespeare reference**
lkp 42 42 42: yup :-P
lkp 42 42 42: have a good night!
BlkDeth 13: g'night!
BlkDeth 13: **and, i DO love that line**
BlkDeth 13: ***the priest rocks***
lkp 42 42 42: :-)
BlkDeth 13 signed off at 3:57:29 AM.

a picture's worth a thousand words...

and i write too much already...

today was another quality day... slept til 12:30 (although i woke up several times before then and made myself go back to sleep in order to get more than 2 hours total :-P)... pizza and developing photos with colleen... movie and quality chat with jessica in philly.

the photos? from last night... we don't look like we're having fun at all... do we? ;-)
















night y'all =P

the like best birthday ever

so you thought it was over and the countdown was reset to 364 days, but not so much... last night was the good chats and dinner night... tonight was the crazy night...

first though, i had to give a talk to the rutgers REU kids... eric had called late last night and we talked til nearly 3am my time... and then i crashed... i kept dreaming that i overslept and missed giving the talk or that i screwed it up somehow or another, but i did wake up on time, get some breakfast, and practice my talk before heading to campus to give it... and here's proof that eric's just that great... we were talking at 3am my time/midnight his... he generally stays up til 2 or 3am, and then sleeps til noon... he set his alarm for 9am his time/noon mine and was like "ok, so you're freaking out about the talk, i don't have a planned peptalk, but like i can totally field all your usual ridiculous questions... so have at it"... yeah, eric's great :-)

long story short (or at least this part of it), i gave the talk, the audience cheered and approved, asked good questions, and even the one professor who sat in came up afterwards and complimented me heartily.

thus ends the being responsible part of the day.

although there was dinner last night, the thing i really really wanted to do for my birthday was see a broadway show, so sarah, scott, ben, and me had tickets for "movin' out" tonight...

sarah had to work til late, so scott, ben, and i caught the 3:30 train to penn station, then beelined for the world's largest toys r us (in times square) -- it was great, because although i've been there many times, it's a completely different dynamic for everything when you put ben and scott together... scott oohed and aahed at the huge moving dinosaur and ben played with action figures... we all danced the hokey pokey and the chicken dance with the dancing elmos, and scott freaked out over a kids book and had to read it to us (called my mamma is a llama or something like that)... it was just plain hilarious -- it's fun to hang out with people who can be completely ridiculous like that!

after dinner at sbarro and a run through the hershey store just to get high on chocolate smells without actually buying anything, we headed to the broadway/43rd street starbucks where we were meeting up with sarah... we met up with her, and meandered to another starbucks and then to wait for doors to open for the play.

so, "movin' out" -- fantastic! it's a broadway musical centered totally around the music of billy joel... i think you have to have a real appreciation for billy joel music to get the most out of it... there was a plot, but no dialogue -- just a band (handpicked by billy joel) that was on a platform that moved on the stage or up in the air depending on the scene and lots of ballet people (handpicked by twila tharp) going along with the music -- impressively there were a handful of songs neither scott nor i knew, but the choreography was amazing!... each scene was just a single billy joel song, or a couple glued together, kinda like rock concert meets ballet... scott and i (and occasionally ben) sang at the top of our lungs along with the songs we knew (and it was so loud you couldn't really hear us anyhow so we weren't being distracting, just laughing our heads off and having a blast!)... they did a really weird arrangement of "we didn't start the fire" though that we didn't recognize until the words started and "pressure" was done in like double time with the cheesy synthesizer line replaced by something else... sarah commented though, that even being less familiar with the songs, the choreography, especially in act 2, was completely amazing... so yeah, we all had a blast... and scott and me sang ourselves nearly hoarse =P

when the play got out (10ish) no one wanted to go home yet, so we all wandered towards penn station, didn't see anywhere to stop, so we headed east a bit and ended up at some random pub for 2.5 hours... sarah, scott, and ben split 2 pitchers of beer, i had 3 margaritas, and we all split miscellanous fun food... the thing is alcohol makes me quieter and tireder... coffee's what makes me do crazy stuff, so it was tasty, but i was the quietest in the bunch, still it was a hilarious conversation and we had fun... we left mostly because there were 2 trains left going back to jersey before sunrise, and we figured if we at least tried to make the earlier of the 2 (the 12:42am train) we'd for sure make it home... we ran into the station and onto the train as they were calling "all aboard" and ready to head out...

scott, ben, and me laughed most of the way home, and then riding in my car back to campus, we sang along with toy story and lion king songs on the CD i had in my radio -- me, ben, and scott trying to sing along with the high parts of hakuna matata at 2am... yeah... it was durn entertaining :-)

now, i'll get photos tomorrow and scan them for your laughter enjoyment, and scott owes me a dramatic reading of "go dog go" (kids book) tomorrow afternoon -- i'm excited =P

time to get un-manhattan-ified (i.e. i always feel gross and sticky after getting back from the city), and get some sleep... yeah, it's been a durn good day :-)

night y'all!

a thought

just chatted with eric for over an hour again... made one random comment that he remarked was actually mildly profound

me: "so i was telling my mom about the whole sense of rhythm issue, and instead of listening to my whole paragraph, she started counting along with the song on the radio, trying to get me to hear it just by her counting... dude, why does everyone do this? i don't need people to count at me and tell me what i should be hearing... i need people to listen to what i hear and help me figure out how to adjust that!"

eric: "dude, congratulations, i think you've finally clearly phrased the problem with nearly every education system that exists -- people tell people what they should think instead of adapting methods to meet them with where they're at -- good job!"

that's about as much as i'm capable of thinking at 3am... night :-P

the end of a quality day

half an hour more of it being my birthday -- woohoo.

since the nicole package came, i was moderately productive.

(1) went to campus to see the room i'm giving the lecture in tomorrow and tried out my chocolate on magnets trick again... it looks like it should work alright.

(2) went and got my first more-significant-than-just-a-trim haircut in well over a year -- i told the lady i wanted 2 to 3 inches off, and notice that the ends aren't just the same length -- i like them a little layered... she took like 6 inches off the front, 3 off the back, and did crazy layers everywhere -- jessica says it looks good... i'm still adjusting :-P (i don't doubt her opinion, i just have to get used to it) ;-)

(3) came home and caught up on email ... eric called and sang half the birthday song, brother called and told jokes for a bit, roommate called and sang me a birthday song she personally wrote

(4) got more fun birthday mail

(5) jessica came over! we chatted for a bit between my phone calls this afternoon, then...

(6) all the people who are in town right now came out for dinner with me (john, emily, scott, mike, colleen, and vicki joined me and jessica)... we went to tgi fridays, and scott made the wait staff sing at me, although our waitress forgot the words to their restaurant variation on the birthday song... it was entertaining, even though i kicked scott hard under the table for it =P

(7) after dinner, everyone went home, and jessica and i chatted for another hour before she just headed back to philly

all in all, an enjoyable day... oh! and here's your final silly IM statement of the day:

krispudwell: HAPPY BIRTHDAY to You!!! (Imagine me singing at the top of my lungs...not shouting...or maybe shouting from 1300 miles away????)

heh... i'm officially 23... how weird is that?

night y'all.

she did it again...

i started writing this blog several months after it happened, but by now you should all realize that nicole unrath, one of my roommate's last spring, and one of my best friends throughout undergrad at valpo, died in a car wreck last september.

nicole was always the one person i was guaranteed a long newsy happy birthday card from on time, AND a good long chat the day of my birthday... i'm gonna really miss that.

this year, it's been interesting what reminds me of nicole. a month ago, her mom sent out pictures of nicole's room and asked what each of just a handful of us would like in particular.... ironically, today, on my birthday, i just got the package... bittersweet really... it's hard to sort through stuff that was nicole's and is now mine because she's gone, but on the other hand, even though she's been gone 9.5 months, she still managed to get to me on my birthday.

go figure.

(and now the song that randomly comes on the radio is "we can cry with hope, we can say goodbye with hope, because we know our goodbye is not the end, we can grieve with hope because we believe with hope because there's a place where we'll see your face again" -- not an easy afternoon)

dude, time to be emotional for a bit i guess, and then get going with my day.

later
=)

still feeling the love :-)

woke up to all this on my computer screen:

Eireanno: happy birthday!
dogbert948: happy birthday
jweise27: HEY LARA...HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! :-) Hope you have a great day!!!
amazon8181: Herzlichen Gluckwunsch zum Geburtstag!
davrbeagle: Happy La Day!

and half an hour worth of e-cards to play with :-) this makes me happy :-)

and the madness continues!

officially happy birthday to me ;-P

already, in the hour since midnight, dave beagley called, sang at me, and then chatted for half an hour... he wins first person to sing at me, and hopefully there will only be a limited number of those :-P (no reflection on dave's singing ;-)... reflection on how many times i hear happy birthday in the next 23 hours)

lkp 42 42 42(me): dude
hockey7183 (steve klee): dude
hockey7183: boldog szuletesnapot {lara's note... this = happy birthday in hungarian}
lkp 42 42 42: people are calling me and singing at me
lkp 42 42 42: it's scary
lkp 42 42 42: 1 person already did... 2 called earlier and said they were calling back this afternoon to sing at me
hockey7183: do you have a lot of tone deaf friends?
lkp 42 42 42: lol
lkp 42 42 42: actually a lot of them used to be in choir
hockey7183: well that's good

lkp 42 42 42 (me): dude
smswtshnn (scott): dude
lkp 42 42 42: someone already called me from missouri to sing happy birthday at me
lkp 42 42 42: both eric and roommate have sworn to do the same
smswtshnn: :-D
lkp 42 42 42: you really don't want to sing at me later, ok?
smswtshnn: :-) okay, don't worry
lkp 42 42 42: promise?
smswtshnn: pinky-swear

i saw zoolander on TV tonight -- highly amusing, yet one of the dumbest movies i've ever seen!

worked on the notes for my talk (zoolander was on back to back and i saw the first half of the first time through and the second half of the second time through), then had a few phone calls.

roommate called to see when i'd be free tomorrow (today now) for her to call and sing at me...... eric called to ask 1 question (about quals studying), and we talked for nearly an hour and a half, and he's threatening to sing when he calls me tomorrow too... duuuuude!

oh, and it's a small world -- things are starting up for the new 1st year students at the LCMS seminary in st. louis,... apparently dave beagley met josh hatcher (dave's a 2nd year there now... josh is my age, but took longer to do undergrad... he and i were both officers at the same time at my high school youth group in memphis) -- majorly go figure!

done rambling... running through my dumb math talk once, then going to sleep so i can have some fun tomorrow :-)... jessica's coming up for dinner! (yay!) and scott's promised to drink lots of margaritas with me (yay again!); it'll be a good evening :-)

night y'all.

greetings galore

birthdays always crack me up... some people know you well, and plan weeks in advance for what to get you; others know you just as well but it's more their style to just send an e-card or call you, or something...

but for like everyone else, there's some socially mandated protocol that if you somehow hear it's someone's birthday you must make a point of telling them "happy birthday!" regardless of whether you really have something more to say or not... it cracks me up :-P

e.g. my away message for half the day today was the conversation w/ my g-ma on the phone from earlier... amanda saw that before she went to her parents place for father's day (and she won't be back til next weekend) so she left an index card on the table before she left reading "happy birthday!" -- cute and nice, and prime example of the above paragraph :-)

natalie called me earlier today to check when i was coming through with eric... she somehow got wires crossed and thought that me and eric were coming this next weekend instead of similar dates in JULY, and was all worried that she would be at a conference when we were supposed to stay with her... after finally realizing june and july are two different months :-) "have a great birthday tomorrow!" was the end of our chat =)

neighborest heather IMed me earlier:
JoyNotes5: Ha, your grandma IS the coolest. ;-) I"m off to the ice rink, but wanted to smile at you from many miles away...*waves an arm* can you see me! *waves both arms* how about now?...no? Hmm...*buffs and polishes teeth to alabaster perfection* ok, you've GOTTA be able to see 'em shinin' NOW! ...maybe? *sigh* guess this will have to do... :-D
JoyNotes5: JOY and SUPER happy Birthday wishes for TOMORROW. :-)

she makes me smile :-)

and the list continues. it's just amusing to me that in general people build up so much to their birthday, which in reality is just another day, but it's fun to get the attention for 24 hours give or take =P

i don't know that this entry really has a point, and since i think i'm rambling, i'm done :-P

happy sunday to all y'all =P

quotes

from last night:

ben: lara and me are like kindling -- we ignite the excitement in each other, and act like little kids

(clear in context, sounds kinda shady in print =P)

9:15 this morning
(phone rings)
me: hi grandma! how are you?
grandma pudwell: hi lara! happy birthday!
me: um, thanks
grandma: it is your birthday, isn't it? i just wanted to be the first to wish you a happy birthday.
me: it's tomorrow, but thanks -- so you are the first :-)
grandma: oh! the 22nd?
me: nope, still the 21st... today's the 20th
grandma: ooooh, well i haven't mailed your card out yet, and i guess i was the first to call you -- have a good day and have a happy birthday tomorrow, i'll talk to you then

(dude, my grandma's great :-))

austin powers (the original one) is on TBS right now... it started while i was finishing lunch... i've only seen it once before (probably in 1998, the year after it came out) and i wasn't the most amused by it then... however, even though some of it i still think is really dumb, i'm actually halfway amused so far this time through... maybe i'll actually stay put and watch the whole thing =P

joy.

later dudes.

a quality day

so yeah, it was a good one.

re: the last entry, scott's a gimp because he backed out last minute on our trip to the gardens... otherwise everything was as planned or better.

we left campus around 1pm, and it took 2.5 hours to drive to these gardens (30-45 minutes west of philly), so we got there finally around 3:30... we did a lot of walking right off... meadow walk, forest walk, italian water gardens, etc... waterfall gardens and a bell tower... a kids garden, a sensory garden (plants you can touch, smell, etc.)... and then around 6 the carillon show started... in the waterfall garden there was a huge belltower, and someone gave a concert at 6... we meandered back over there by 6:15 and sat in the hill garden and listened for a bit -- it was really nice

about then, we decided we should get some dinner before the rest of the evening... so we did... then at 7:30 we got tickets for the chester county symphony playing in the outdoor theater... they played "from the movies", so like part of the nutcracker, a song from fantasia, a bit from carmen, a few others, and finally ended on the theme from star wars -- it was fantastic!... other than the part where the older man in front of me moved his chair, and landed with one leg of the chair right on my foot and sat again before i could stop him... i was wincing in pain for most of the next to last piece... but to make up for it i caught a lightning bug in my hands during the star wars theme (the last song) and was thrilled no end :-)

as soon as that concert was done, we raced over to see the fountain display -- tons of fountains lit up and set to music (kinda like a combination of the lights show at niagara falls at night or the show at the centennial park olympic fountain in atlanta, only fancier in the "we're in a really nice garden" kind of way)... most of the music they did it to was gershwin, and i looooove gershwin, so absolutely fantastic!

finally, we wandered through the indoor conservatory, and ben and i stopped for awhile in the courtyard (since it blocked out lights from around) and spotted tons of constellations -- it was great!!!

in the end, we left 5 minutes before the gardens closed, drove the 2.5 hours back home, and now here 1am, i'm back... what a day :-)

the drive home was especially entertaining because like... dude, how often is it that you're out with math people where the guys are outnumbered by the girls... it was only a group of 3 of us, but it was exceedingly abnormal and amusing dynamics... we spent the drive home with ben asking questions like "so why on earth do most girls... (fill in blank)?" and other such fun, which made for lots of amusement the whole way back

yeah, basically, it was a quality day.

now to worry about my talk tomorrow :-P

later dudes.

just in case you were wondering...

scott is a gimp.

enough said.

the terminal

ben and me got back an hour ago from seeing "the terminal"... you'll read all kinds of reviews, and there's nothing to make mine better than anyone elses, but the movie had spirit and it wasn't a story that's been done before; i thought tom hanks did an excellent job, and i was happy with how it ended although catherine zeta-jones character got on my nerves a little... it's on the higher end of movies i've liked this year -- by all means go see it!

we were going to see "around the world in 80 days" earlier in the week except ben's been swamped in grading and writing midterms for the class he's teaching that it didn't happen... we were going to go tomorrow too, until colleen had other ideas...

tomorrow, scott, colleen, ben, and me are going here for the day... colleen really wants to see the fountain show and possibly go to the concert; we'll see how this works... should be nice though.

and here's survey of the week -- dare i meet crazy online friend who i've been chatting with since high school? the main conundrum is that even with people i know well in both contexts, people interact very differently online than they do in person sometimes (and i'm sure i do too), that i'm not afraid of him, but rather of the off chance that we'll meet up for lunch and then not get along quite the same way as we have for so long online.... i don't want to go on my trip to memphis, stop off in ohio and meet him, and then have the next chat have an undertone of "so you're not who i expected you to be"; and not that that's guaranteed, it's a nagging concern though, because this whole concept is a minorly big deal in my head :-P

but hey, we're talking about lara -- lara who's always travelling, meeting new people, and trying new things... fear of leaving a comfort zone doesn't stop me -- it just makes me overanalyze first =P

so that's the scoop... if we're really going to this garden tomorrow, i should get some shut-eye... night y'all

p.s. exactly 2 days 17 hours and 41 minutes til i'm 23 -- how scary is that? =P

good stuff

just chatted on IM for a little over an hour with michelle collins... and a good chat too =) yay for this :-) and yay for friends!

amanda knocked on my door this morning with a long list of questions... now that i have a place to live in august, she's putting up an ad (with my permission) for a roommate starting august 15th so that i only pay half a month's rent for august, and save nearly $300 :-) i hope she gets a respondent and that it all works out... i'm glad she's thinking ahead better than me! =)

now, to read or to write my REU talk... hmmm... probably some of both =P

later dudes

europe, anyone?

i miss budapest.

to remedy that, roommate (kristin) and i have been talking about going to europe for a couple weeks next summer... budapest and ICB (international church of budapest, my church the whole 4.5 months i was there) for sure... probably vienna and maybe prague and/or somewhere else besides... roommate's never been out of north america; i just really really want to go back!

all this looking at maps, train/air fares, and things to do is making me all nostalgic. =P

what got us started on this tonight though?

email from a couple hours ago:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2004 19:24:19 -0500
Subject: BSM All Class Reunion
From: "Budapest Semesters" Add to Address Book
To: "Budapest Mathematics"


The Budapest Semesters in Mathematics Program will celebrate its 20th
year with a gala all class reunion to be held in Budapest, June 15-23,
2005.

Events will include several talks on the history of the program and a
plenary lecture or two. But the emphasis will be on reunion with plenty
of time to visit with former professors and classmates.

If you’ve been itching to return to Budapest but never found the right
moment, plan for next summer. If you’d like to receive additional
information about the reunion, please fill out the pre-registration
form at

www.stolaf.edu/depts/math/budapest
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

woo hoo!!!! :-)

back to the old

i've so enjoyed the week so far without having a roommate, that amanda unexpectedly coming back an hour ago throws a damper on the next few days...

yeah she lives here too, but when i left to go sign the lease on my new place, i didn't expect to come home to her with a friend saying "well, so i have a boy coming over tonight, so i moved some of your stuff that was out here, can you move the rest before he gets here?"

i feel cornered... i'm in my room with a book because she's out in the tv room chatting it up with her friend about stuff i'm not really interested in at all.

i need to get over myself and stop complaining... just 2 more weeks really, then i'll be in memphis, then driving cross country, and then the lease will have started on my new place... 2 more weeks...

today's reading fun

the page i just read, in the book i'm reading for fun this week: (i was just going to quote the last line, but jessica, i bet you especially will appreciate the bit before :-)... and probably a few of you others =P) enjoy:

God the Geometer

The ancients believed that the world was made up of four basic elements: earth, water, air, and fire. Foreshadowing the atomic theory of matter of twentieth-century science, around 350 B.C. the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, in his book Timaeus, theorized that these four elements were all aggregates of tiny solids. As the basic building blocks of all matter, he argued, these four elements must have perfect geometric form, namely the shapes of the five regular solids that so captivated the Greek mathematicians -- the perfectly symmetric tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron, and dodecahedron.

As the lightest and sharpest of the elements, said Plato, fire must be a tetrahedron. Being the most stable, earth must consist of cubes. Water, because it is the most mobile and fluid, has to be an icosahedron, the solid that rolls most easily. As to air, he observed somewhat mysteriously that "...air is to water as water is to earth," and concluded, even more mysteriously, that air must therefore be an octohedron. Finally, to account for the last regular solid, he proposed that the dodecahedron represented the shape of the entire universe.

Although the particulars of Plato's theory can easily be dismissed as whimsy, the philosophical assumptions behind it are exactly the same as those that drive science today. The universe is constructed in an ordered fashion that can be understood using mathematics. To Plato as to many others, God must surely have been a geometer. Or as the great Italian scientist Galileo Galilei wrote in the seventeenth century, "In order to understand the universe, you must know the language in which it is written. And that language is mathematics."

~from The Millenium Problems by Keith Devlin, pages 64-65.

(lara's footnote -- if you don't remember the Platonic solids from pre-calc or something, good moveable pictures here.)

treasure hunt

found: the book that i was looking for 2 nights ago and 2 kiwi-lime scented candles i bought the same weekend but had forgotten about... they were in a box of to-be-recycled paper and old receipts from the semester

next thing i need to find: the actual notes from when i first gave the talk i plan to give next tuesday... so far i've found in process notes-to-myself from when i was writing it, but not the good copy, and i don't wanna rewrite the whole thing!

blah

later dudes

pet peaves

things that annoy me:

(1) the tiny washer/dryer units at my apartment complex that cost $1/machine/load and don't even completely dry my clothes... highly unfortunate waste of $$$

(2) people who go through the express lane with more than twice the quota of items... i can see going through with 11 items in a 10 item or less lane, but not 25... furthermore, it adds insult to injury to the people waiting behind you when said person leaves their cart in line and goes to get *more* stuff, is gone for 10 minutes, and pushes their way back in front of you even though the line has moved on... does anyone else get as super annoyed by people who do this?

on a happier note, got my cashier's check for my share of the new apartment security deposit... it'll officially be ours in 3 hours :-)

later dudes

party indeed!

we got a house, we got a house, hey hey hey hey, we got a house!

so colleen called this one apartment ad this morning, played phone tag with the guy all day and we met him this evening and saw the place... it's in highland park -- clear the other direction of campus from where i am now, but a little closer to campus.

the landlord is the fire marshall for the town... he lives across the street... we'll rent the top floor of a 2 story house, with our own washer/dryer... 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, kitchen, dining area, and living room... plus a fireplace and a porch... the yard is nice and well-landscaped... kinda has a cute garden-y feel... we meet again tomorrow to hand over the security deposit and sign the lease... it'll be great :-)

yay for having a place to live.

just talked to eric -- we decided we're not bad people if we don't start studying til next week, so that's the new plan :-P

hopefully seeing "around the world in 80 days" whenever ben gets back from class... woohoo. =P

later dudes =P

i feel loved =)

today's been a good day

(1) woke up to an email from steve klee -- our paper from last spring was accepted to be printed in "international journal of mathematics and mathematical sciences"... this will be my 3rd published math article

(2) colleen and i had lunch together and went househunting -- several good prospects (the one from last week had shady comments from most tenants on apartmentreviews.com or something, so we're holding off on it)... visiting 1 in a couple hours and another tomorrow night.

(3) got an email from my aunt susan (dad's sister)... i haven't seen her since g-pa pudwell died (7.5 years ago),... nonetheless we have plans to meet up for dinner while i'm on my roadtrip with eric next month -- yay!

(4) i have friends to celebrate my birthday with... this is the first time i've had more than one person to hang out with at once since my 20th birthday at my REU in texas 3 years ago... so far ben, scott, sarah, and i will see "movin out", the broadway musical that's all billy joel music on tuesday night... day after my birthday, but also after my dreaded REU talk is done :-P yay!

now, if only i could find that book ;-P

later dudes

reward

i bought a book at a used book store last april called _the science of God_... i thought i knew exactly where it was on my bookshelf when i wanted to start in on it tonight, however apparently it has a mind of its own and is hiding from me.

i offer $1 (yes, a whole freakin dollar -- but think of all the endless possibilities of things you can buy at a dollar store with that) to the first person who either (a) comes and visits me and locates said book before i do, or (b) successfully guesses where it is long-distance (and tells me their guess, thereby leading to discovery of the book) before i find it =P

oh! and if for some reason you're borrowing it from me and i forgot i lent it out, that doesn't count, but letting me know you have it is appreciated =P

for reference, i've scoured all the bookshelves and in around and under both of my bookcases, and in the stack of boxes in my living room, so guess elsewhere =P

good luck!

here ends this public service announcement =P

reading material

i just spent half an hour reading a 40 page chapter about the background of the riemann hypothesis (the greatest unsolved math problem of today) and why solving it would be especially cool... and i enjoyed it... i guess this makes me a math geek? eh, at least i'm proud of it :-P

night y'all =P

3 generation update

g-ma (the one i just saw yesterday) was put in the hospital this afternoon. they're concerned about a sore on her foot that's healing weird (and she's diabetic so they take longer to heal) and not getting better how it should... dad, who took the message while mom was out, was very mellodramatic about it like something horrible is going to happen... mom's convinced it's just a preventative measure

mom flew back to memphis last night... she expected dad and ryan to pick her up in her van, which they did.. but 5 miles away from the airport the van made a horrendous popping noise (which they later discovered was the transmission completely dying)... they miraculously made it to the airport passenger loading area, where it died... it was 2am before they all got home... mom got a new car today -- a 1997 chevy blazer.

and then there's me... for not seeing anyone all day, i sure do write a lot... i don't know what to make of the g-ma story... but i've given plenty of my thoughts on her already this weekend... i guess we just gotta see what happens... and i'm meanwhile i'm having a delightful time avoiding the world -- spaghetti and watching "miss congeniality" on TV

later dudes

all around the world...

well, maybe not the world, but the country... i've been on the phone for the past 2 hours..

half an hour chatting with colleen about housing; we're doing lunch tomorrow and then visiting more places =P

half an hour on the phone talking with eric about our trip next month and about math stuff; we agreed that tomorrow we'll chat again and make ourselves a studying for quals schedule to keep each other on track; we studied for math GREs together for a semester in budapest - hopefully studying together again even long distance over the rest of the summer will be good for us too =P

20 minutes playing phone tag w/ dad for a plant question

then 40 minutes on the phone with ian renner... he was online this afternoon for the first time since march/april, when he told me his dad had died earlier in the spring; i got more details actually talking to him... he's done with his masters degree in statistics and living in michigan indefinitely long to help his mom and grandma cope with things now that his dad is gone; as luck would have it, he'll be in detroit for a concert the same day as eric and me will be there visiting on our trip, so hopefully i'll get to see the boy for the first time in well over a year!

and now here it is 6:30 -- what a day... time to read, make dinner, and be a vegetable =P

later dudes =P

a most glorious mess

you know, for not having work, etc. to do today, i've done a lot.

i helped colleen sort through apartment ads and called several for us this morning... caught up on some email... read 2 magazines cover to cover (the life special issue of the 7 wonders of the world -- only they have 5 lists of 7... 7 ancient wonders, 7 medieval wonders, 7 natural wonders, 7 modern wonders, and 7 animal wonders -- and the national geographic special issue of "exploring outerspace -- our universe in pictures)... paid all my unpaid bills that i have for the month of june... bought and mailed a father's day card on time =P... and repotted plants

it's this last part that's the mess... i have 4 plants... 2 pothoses (long vine-y climbing plants), and 2 euphorbias (tall leafy things)... i'd left them in the same pots since i moved in august, so all of the above were really outgrowing their current space... so they all graduated today from a 6inch pot and three 4inch pots to an 8 inch and three 6 inchers... for those of you unfamiliar with the art of repotting plants, let me tell you... it does make a most glorious mess...

first you have to put soil in the new pot (which probably drops some specks on the ground... then you have to get the plant out of its old pot (which generally involves some turning the pot on its side and banging so as to get the roots out all at once instead of tearing them... i.e. more dirt spilled), then you have to roughen up the ball of roots so that they're more inclined to grow out into their new space instead of in on themselves (i.e. even more mess), place plant in new pot, and fill around it... as if that isn't enough, after all is done, you water the plant and the soil compacts probably meaning you still need to add some more to fill in gaps (i.e. even more mess)... it's a good thing amanda's gone for now, because if she came home to how the floor looks right now (soil and dead leaves from trimming the plants up) all over the floor, even if it is mostly on newspaper, she'd have a cow... at least i did all this on the kitchen tile floor instead of on the white carpet everywhere else, right? ;-P

now, back to reading, or plotting, or something =P

later dudes =P

go yahoo

opened my yahoo email account this morning to notice several changes... first was interface, and then later in the morning an upgrade from 6MB of storage to 100MB...

my guess is that they're trying to be more competative with other email servers (such as the new gmail from google)... i've had my yahoo account the longest of any of my email addresses and i don't plan on ever getting rid of it... i just appreciate the significant updates from time to time. =)

end of blurb =P

the long version

as promised... as if this is exciting... heh

(1) road construction: going less than 10 miles in 2 hours on the interstate is pretty outrageous... whoever's in charge of pennsylvania interstate construction should know better than to filter 3 lanes of harrisburg interstate traffic through a rest area PARKING LOT! it's one thing to merge everyone into one lane, (which some people can't handle already!) it's a totally other thing to filter that one lane through a parking lot where people are pulling in and out and blocking the one lane of traffic... summary: i was incredibly annoyed friday afternoon.

(2) best lunch for $1.35 ever made up for the construction though =) to get to g-ma's i drove the better part of 200 miles on the PA turnpike... a few of the travel plazas have farmers markets and this trip was the first i'd noticed any of them being open.. for $1.35 i got two huge green bell peppers and a cucumber and ate them as i drove for lunch... it was a party :-)

(3) i rambled about the g-ma thing already before i left... i guess the weird part is, although she's been in the nursing home for 4 years now, for the first 3 or so, whenever we visited her behavior was consistent... not really better, not really worse.... from my most recent visits (june 2003, august 2003, november 2003, january 2004, this weekend) there's been noticeable changes from june/aug to nov/jan and from nov/jan to now... last summer g-ma was slow to respond and didn't speak clearly (half her vocal chords are paralyzed and half her mouth muscles too so that's how it is), but she answered the questions you asked her, and remembered things.... in november she started acting kind of weird... like would have me push her in her wheelchair "to my other room" or "to the room at the end of the hallway" giving me directions as we went and then she'd end us up at a fire escape or something and seem extremely disoriented... but at least in november she was happy to see us and had a "good day" the first day or two we were around even if she got tired later in the visit... this time, the first 3 of the 4 days we were around the response to "how are you?" was "miserable"... reaching for things that weren't there... responding to different questions than we asked, or completely neglecting to notice someone had asked her something... and just about every time she did answer what was asked of her, the answer was completely false (e.g. mom asked her how church was last week and g-ma's response was "i didn't go... my stomach hurt too bad"... but mom's sister debbee was up for the weekend and took her to church!)... mostly it's weird to see someone who you remember clearly as who they used to be become trapped in a physical and mental prison and slowly slip away from you... i have issues with this and i'm not sure how to phrase my thoughts... i have a hard time with the fact that i'm the only grandchild who has opportunity to visit her reasonably regularly and isn't "afraid" of her like my younger cousins are... i have a hard time with myself that i feel like i need to bring "props" (e.g. my photo albums) to be able to talk to her... i feel ridiculous when g-ma tries to speak and we all have to ask her to repeat multiple times before anyone has a clue what she said... i miss the friend of a grandparent she once was and have a hard time responding within myself to how she is now, even if my mom and her sisters compliment me on how i respond to her and engage her on the outside. yeah, i have issues with this

(4) mom and i had planned to see "raising helen" on saturday, since she wanted to and i was willing to see it again for her sake... turns out though that the time we showed up for (based on friday's posted times) turned out to be a sneak preview of "the notebook" which doesn't come out for 2 more weeks... it was remarkably serendipitous that that's what happened and that we got to see it together... basically an old man is reading a story to an old woman and it flashes back and forth between him reading to her now and to the story he's telling about the 1940s... it comes out eventually that they're married and he's reading their life story to her because she can't remember it because she has senile dementia... the ending is a tearjerker, even for me, who reacts, but doesn't usually *cry* at movies... best line?
alli: (lady with senile dementia, in a rare state of knowing what's going on) "so what are you going to do when i don't remember anything at all? how will you deal with it?"
noah: (her husband): "i'll still love you and still be here for you... even then"
considering we had just been talking about changes with g-ma over dinner right before it, it hit especially close to home to watch that later on... duuude.

(5) besides taking my step g-pa out to lunch on sunday after church (which is interesting b/c out of mom's generation, he talks most freely with her, and out of the grandkid generation, he seems to have the most idea of what to say to me), mom had plans to have lunch with her best friend from high school... i'd heard lots about karen but never met her, which was entertaining since mom considers her to be one of her closest 3 friends, and i know the other 2 extremely well... very cool lady... it was fun... and entertaining to see another side of mom for a bit.

(6) today, after visiting w/ g-ma for a bit, mom and i drove up to alleghany cemetary... my g-pa, his parents, and my uncle (mom's brother who died of cancer at age 6) are all buried there at the top of the highest hill in the place... to put it in context, this place is hundred of acres huge and has graves dating back for hundreds and hundreds of years... impressive mausoleums and war monuments in many parts... all my schumann relatives are buried though at the top of a hill overlooking the city, with a huge statue of jesus holding up a dove to the sky in the middle of their section... it's kinda nice... no one had been up there to clean off the headstones since christmas time, so we worked on that for a bit, talked a bit, and then headed back to aunt pris's before mom had to fly and i had to drive home... i guess in summary it's been kinda a death/old age oriented weekend...

(7) on a cheerier note, when we got back to aunt pris's place, i chatted with her for an hour while mom read, and then headed home to jersey... i like chatting with aunt pris... she talks to me as an equal and relates to me and vice versa, and i like that. =) plus she's not nosy in a mom/other aunts kind of way... maybe it's the she's the youngest in her generation of the family and i'm the oldest of the next generation thing, but whatever it is, i like her. =)

(8) upon returning, ben and i saw "stepford wives" which i enjoyed, but a couple parts freaked me out to jumping halfway out of my seat... doht... also noted a new starbucks on the way, which is the 3rd one within a 5 minute drive of my place... this makes me happy! =)

(9) no new project for work yet... i guess this means tomorrow i read and convince myself to start preparing my dreaded talk for the REU kids for next tuesday... yikes!

(10) amanda basically moved out yesterday since she's done with her summer internship... she'll be in and out but mostly out for the rest of the summer, so i'll probably read a lot and be nocturnal by choice... by all means, please call and entertain me :-)

yeah, that really *is* the loong version, eh?

i'm done, really, i am.

night y'all. =P

there and back again

750 miles round trip this weekend and i'm back in jersey:

the short version?
*road construction stinks
*farmers markets provide the best cheapest lunch ever
*it's weird to have a bit more of grandma "missing" every time i visit... i did a lot of thinking
*"the notebook" is a very good movie
*i got to meet my mom's best friend from high school... *that* was entertaining
*highlight of today? cleaning off my grandpa, my uncle, and my great grandparents headstones at the huge 100s of acres big cemetary in pittsburgh
*i really like chatting with my aunt priscilla

that said, the long version comes later

happy evening dudes

ziggy

visontlatasra

heading off for pittsburgh in the morning; bound to be an interesting weekend. i've seen g-ma on "good" days and on "bad" days, and apparently she's on a bad streak lately, although usually the first day we visit she usually is excited enough to see us that it's a "good" day, no matter how she's really feeling. nonetheless, it's always a mental battle of how to cope with how she is now until i actually get there... once i'm there with mom, it'll be fine... until then, i think too much about it... mostly i just miss who she was before her strokes... so i guess in a way i've been missing her for 4 years even though i've seen her regularly all that time.

4 days in a nursing/retirement home... woo hoo.

catch y'all on monday.

cousin update

re: prayer request from yesterday

so my 12 year old cousin is presently in surgery... she hasn't been able to eat or drink anything all week, so they're putting in a stent (sp?) now, and she'll have to have another surgery next week to follow up unless they miraculously catch the stone today.... she's been in intense pain the past couple days and not responding to any medication... here's to hoping it all turns out ok...

the good, the bad, and the ugly

well, not precisely, but it was the most appropriate cliche i could think of for a title...

ugly first... amanda's anti-air conditioning... however, i live and work in our 90+ degree apartment 24/7, whereas she goes away to a nice air-conditioned office during the day... i've started turning on the a/c in the den, and setting up a fan aimed from there into my room when she's not around (start yesterday), and turning it off enough before she gets home that she can't tell.... heh... don't tell amanda.

the good: colleen and i visited an apartment this afternoon... it was one of the only complexes offering 3 bedroom places that have openings for august... with construction it took us 30 minutes from the complex back to campus, but without construction it would be more like 15-20 minutes... we should look into alternate routes...

pluses? our own washer/dryer.... 3 bedrooms and 3 full baths... for less than $550/month/person... only drawback besides distance is that one of the "bedrooms" is really labeled a "study" and has no windows, except for the ones on the french doors to it... so option 1: someone gets a windowless room with curtains on the doors, or option 2: two of us share the master bedroom which is more than twice the size of the study anyhow... spacewise/new-ness for the money it's by far the best deal we've seen... see floorplan below (clickable for readable version =P):



the bad: talked to mom about things she should copy before she comes to pitt tomorrow so she can be our cosigner (instead of mailing forms, i'll have them instantly over the weekend!)... she said that g-ma's been feeling worse lately and getting sores (these things happen when you've been paralyzed for 4 years and do nothing but sit) that they haven't been able to get rid of yet... mom and her sisters are worried about infection due to her diabetes... that all doesn't sound very good, and i'm a little worried about her now too...

and that's my day so far.... jenny (memphis jenny)'s apparently ordering my birthday present right now and told me if i can find any $5 item on amazon i want in addition to what she's already picked out, then she gets free shipping, so it's complementary birthday present shopping time :-)... then back to work... just 65 more contacts to go!

later dudes =P

beating the heat

it might be hot if...
the popsicles you took out of the freezer melt to liquid within 10 minutes of when you took them out... and you're inside!

current temp 91, heat index 97, lows in the 70s... and does my roommate believe in air conditioning? um nope..

after 4 hours of working with the windows open and a fan and still having a headache despite drinking like 2 liters of water already today, i gave up, shut the windows, and turned on the AC... too bad it's not in my room!

now, back to work... goal of 850 today, currently at 769... wish me luck =P

later dudes

2 prayer requests

I was all excited to have 3 emails when I woke up, but turns out only 1 of them was happy... 2 prayer requests

(1) for my 12 year old cousin... her stomach hurt yesterday, so they figured she had caught the stomach flu from my other cousin.... when the pain changed and got worse, they ended up taking her to the ER last night to find out that she has a kidney stone! this usually doesn't happen til people are adult age, but apparently she inherited the problem from her genetic father (who my aunt isn't with anymore)... it'll be fine once she passes it, but how long that takes can be variable, and she's in intense pain in the meantime... so yeah, prayers for rachel.

(2) sue nathan, the staffworker for valpo's IVCF (intervarsity christian fellowship) chapter wrote a mass email last night/this morning as well... apaprently charles (her husband)'s mother (who lives in india) is in ICU for seizures, etc., and the doctors aren't giving them too much hope (but they aren't giving up hope either...)... charles's father just died earlier this spring so prayers for comfort/healing/etc. in that situation.

the end.

now i work.

end of day brain-spin

here it is nearly 1am... looks like 2am is my new official bedtime -- joy.

i did make it to 700 contacts tonight... around 11:30... and since then i've been doing the usual catch up with all 5 email addresses and with all my friends' blogs deal... fun fun... i can't wait til the weekend when i have some time to read! (true i'll be visiting but there comes points of time, when you spend a weekend at a nursing/retirement home that things get dull and you're just sitting there no matter how much you like who you're there to see)

now, here's a little something for everyone:

if you read this to see what i've been up to / what i've felt like rambling my head off about today, you should be satisfied

if you read to vicariously get amanda stories (amanda being my roommate), here's one for you:
(we actually chatted for like an hour tonight while we were both making our own dinner, etc.)
so ron, her boyfriend of 3 years, broke up with her just after he graduated last month (while i was on my roadtrip), and in the last week she'd had like 4 different guys ask her out... one of them she just had to tell me about...
so now that it's summer, people sit on the doorstoops in my apartment complex and chat the evening away... there's a mother of a 5-year old next door who's usually sitting outside my door with a guy from a couple units the other direction on any nights when it's not raining... when i come home i say hi, and ask how they are, then come upstairs to do whatever... amanda on the other hand will chat with them for half an hour before coming up... they know where she does her internship right now (at a local drug store pharmacy) and that ron broke up with her... so the guy came into her store today to get a prescription filled and she tried to hide because she really didn't want to deal with him... it didn't work though, and then apparently told her "so we'll probably be out chatting again tonight... and how about dinner sometime next week?"...
as soon as amanda came home today she came to my room to tell me the story, and then asked me to guess how old the guy was.... until she checked in the pharmacy computer to find out he's 25, she was convinced he was in his 40s and completely grossed out! (and still does not want to do dinner with him anyhow)
i guess it's more amusing how she told it, but nonetheless, there's your amanda update of the day =P

for those of you who read this to live vicariously and get roommate (kristin) updates: (well, who does that... you either know her or you don't?)
i'm amazed at what she's doing this summer... she's called me a few times to say hi, and unfortunately usually i'm still working when she calls so we don't talk as long as i'd like, but we did chat for nearly half an hour earlier and that was nice...
anyhow, she's on an internship for being a hospital chaplain this summer in houston, texas... during the days they shadow people and do group classes together and stuff, but during the night, the interns all take turns being *the* on-call chaplain for the hospital... i.e. spending the night, and getting paged everytime someone dies or something else warranting a chaplain's presence happens... her first night is tomorrow... but for the intern who covered last night... 7 deaths between 8pm and 4am... *hopefully* she'll have a bit calmer of an evening for her first go around... i just can't imagine doing that... makes me thankful for my 11 hour work days of talking to myself!

finally... now that there's an abstract on the rutgers reu page http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/REU i'm starting to freak out a little about my talk for 2 weeks from now... blah.

ok, really, time to chill *away* from the computer =P

night y'all!

food for thought

http://www.crossville-chronicle.com/Chronicle/Opinion/alan060204.html

a very long day

so my boss approves of me going out of town for the weekend if i can if at all possible, finish getting my 1000 contacts by thursday night before i leave...

today's draining though...

(1) i've spent $11 on laundry because the machines are that bad and i had that much to wash... ai yai yai

(2) my goal is 700 contacts by the time i quit today... i started this morning with 550 and told myself lunch was when i got to 600... here it is, 4:15pm, and i'm just up to 592, and not for any lack of trying on my part! i'd go by hours and not get frustrated, except for the needing to finish by thursday night bit... blah

(3)laptop's being weird so i'm working at the desktop which isn't quite as fun as watching movies in the background while i work, but so it goes :-P

in happier news -- i got back the motor for my telescope from the manufacturer... it had busted the first or second time we took the scope outside, and was covered under warranty... now, when i'm not working 11-12 hour days, i can go stargazing with style again ;-P

back to work

later dudes

it's a small world after all

been working away, and now taking a dinner break -- shrimp primavera... and it's at an almost normal dinner time too... i can be good on occasion :-P

obviously, that's not the small world part...

so amanda came home and immediately started cleaning all around me... i felt a little bad, but i was working and i want to get at least 50 more contacts than i presently have before i quit tonight, so i just kept going...

anyhow, while she was cleaning the stairs, some guy showed up... and i recognized his voice! he's the guy who's been around when i've known it's not ron amanda's hanging out with.... mystery solved

what's even funnier... so i'm sitting in front of the TV with my laptop, working away when they come in and then...

amanda: so this is lara, and lara this is my friend ron... yeah, another ron, we're going out to dinner, see you later
ron: hi, actually i think you know one of my roommates
me: really? who?
ron: ben bunting
me: huh... small world

indeed. now i wonder who figured out the connection? as far as i know amanda doesn't know my friends names other than eric, but i could be wrong... maybe it was just the "we both have math graduate roommates" connection... nonetheless, i was amused.

dinnertime.

later dudes. =P

it's a small world after all

been working away, and now taking a dinner break -- shrimp primavera... and it's at an almost normal dinner time too... i can be good on occasion :-P

obviously, that's not the small world part...

so amanda came home and immediately started cleaning all around me... i felt a little bad, but i was working and i want to get at least 50 more contacts than i presently have before i quit tonight, so i just kept going...

anyhow, while she was cleaning the stairs, some guy showed up... and i recognized his voice! he's the guy who's been around when i've known it's not ron amanda's hanging out with.... mystery solved

what's even funnier... so i'm sitting in front of the TV with my laptop, working away when they come in and then...

amanda: so this is lara, and lara this is my friend ron... yeah, another ron, we're going out to dinner, see you later
ron: hi, actually i think you know one of my roommates
me: really? who?
ron: ben bunting
me: huh... small world

indeed. now i wonder who figured out the connection? as far as i know amanda doesn't know my friends names other than eric, but i could be wrong... maybe it was just the "we both have math graduate roommates" connection... nonetheless, i was amused.

dinnertime.

later dudes. =P

it's a small world after all

been working away, and now taking a dinner break -- shrimp primavera... and it's at an almost normal dinner time too... i can be good on occasion :-P

obviously, that's not the small world part...

so amanda came home and immediately started cleaning all around me... i felt a little bad, but i was working and i want to get at least 50 more contacts than i presently have before i quit tonight, so i just kept going...

anyhow, while she was cleaning the stairs, some guy showed up... and i recognized his voice! he's the guy who's been around when i've known it's not ron amanda's hanging out with.... mystery solved

what's even funnier... so i'm sitting in front of the TV with my laptop, working away when they come in and then...

amanda: so this is lara, and lara this is my friend ron... yeah, another ron, we're going out to dinner, see you later
ron: hi, actually i think you know one of my roommates
me: really? who?
ron: ben bunting
me: huh... small world

indeed. now i wonder who figured out the connection? as far as i know amanda doesn't know my friends names other than eric, but i could be wrong... maybe it was just the "we both have math graduate roommates" connection... nonetheless, i was amused.

dinnertime.

later dudes. =P

oh boy oh boy

another one of those days...

this week is looking like unless i make excuses to run errands, i won't leave the house for 3 days again -- how much fun is that?

read til 2am last night (finished leigh's favorite book yesterday afternoon, and then last night i started the millenium problems (about the top 7 most high profile unsolved math problems of today, written in laymen's (i.e. including math people who haven't studie those areas in depth) terms), then slept til 10:30 today, and since then it's been a work in front of the TV day... i'm nearly up to 450 contacts before the site i was working off of had its server go down and my computers started acting retarded... i guess that's a hint that it's breakfast/lunch time?

movie of the AM (was on TV earlier, and started just as i turned the TV on)... "herman USA"... real life story about a town in minnesota who had dozens of single guys and about 6 single girls so they had a huge dance/picnic to attract new blood into town... it was entertaining...

have seen bits and pieces of the memorial stuff being done for president reagan's funeral as i flip through too...

in happy news, i got 2 back issues of "mental floss" in the mail just now... "the spy issue" and "the saints and sinners issue"... they even stuck in a personalized hand-written thank you note for my order :-P when i finish these, (the only 2 issues not sold out from 2002, their first year in print), i'll start ordering the 2003, and the 2004 issues in 2s and 3s as well =P party indeed. exciting articles? "fear of all sums: 3 math theories explained to you in plain english", "for the sake of sake" (2nd sake = japanese wine), and "20 to 30 interesting things you never knew before about japan (but who's counting?)".... party indeed...

now for the texas trophy hunters site to come back up.... ah well... lunch!

on bravery... ;-P

lkp 42 42 42 (me): dude freak out!
lkp 42 42 42: i just caught a big scary bug in a cup!
lkp 42 42 42: without screaming
Galois1105 (eric): *freaking*
lkp 42 42 42: now to toss it ouside... brb
lkp 42 42 42: you didn't *actually* freak did you? :-(
Galois1105: no, i didn't actually freak :-)

up and down (and vice versa)

had a plant question for my dad earlier, but he's visiting g-ma pudwell for her 79th birthday this weekend... so i figured i'd call and say hi to everyone (parents and the grandmother) all at once... however, it ended up being the weirdest discussion i've ever had with my grandma... ever
me: hi grandma! how are you?
g-ma: oh hi, how are you? what's wrong?
me: nothing, i was just calling to say hi and see how you're doing
g-ma: oh, well, lar, then i have terrible news
me: what's that?
g-ma: luella died on friday... i don't know what i'm gonna do.

luella is g-ma's best friend in her apartment complex... when i was on my roadtrip, i went over to visit with her for an hour and show her pictures as well... when g-ma and g-pa moved to g-ma's current place (when i was in 9th grade), luella and orville were the other couple close in age to my grandparents who had similar ideas of how to spend their time, so they had a lot of fun as a group of 4... then g-pa died so dynamics changed by lu was still g-ma's best friend... now with lu gone, orville's at a complete loss and i'm not sure how long he'll last without her... g-ma's at a loss in her own way too, although she seems to go strong through everything... at least she still has bob (her boyfriend) around...

at any rate... a little bummed about luella... not that i knew her exceedingly well, but i visited with her a bit every time i was around g-mas for the last 9 years and i'm sad for g-ma and for orville that she's gone now...

on the flip side of the coin....

happy quotes of the day
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

pastor j: (in the kids' sermon, holding up an egg): so if i broke this open, i'd have two things... a yoke and....?
kid: and a mess!!!

so yeah i dropped my computer the other day and saw some sparks and some smoke come out of it, and so i called gateway and asked them if that was normal and they were like 'no, not at all, what have you done to it?'" ~eric

no, so here's what you do instead... you call up scott and say 'hey, scott, i need to make a phone call and i don't want to', eric says get me some tequila. ~eric

yeah, that transition didn't work so well, but they're still quality quotes, right? =P

time for "lunch"... later dudes

warning labels

this is a fun game... i put several variations on my "names" in for maximum dramatic effect ;-P enjoy =P

lara may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

NOTE: z

No smoking around lkp42. Thankyou for your co-operation.

UCAUTION

IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP LKP424242 AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES.

THIS WAY UP á

la has fragile contents which may break!

> WARNING

mathematicalmeanderer is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

now go see if you can get a warning label i haven't happened across yet -- enjoy! =P