The Atomic Pirate

2011-01-08T17:36:00.005-05:00

Happy Holidays from.... Your Spam

Every once in awhile I look through my spam to see if anything slipped through the cracks, and usually there's a few things in there. I was doing that a couple weeks ago on a bus trip to VA and came across this funny email. Even spammers get into the holiday spirit, apparently!

Oh my Dear, Forget ur Fear,

Let all ur Dreams be Clear,

Never put Tear, Please Hear,

I want to tell one thing in ur Ear

Wishing u a very Happy "NEW YEAR"! 2011

Let me also echo those eloquent sentiments. Happy New Year!

2010-09-26T10:28:00.002-04:00

Shades of Jurassic Park

There's been some uproar lately over new genetic technology from AquaBounty that allows modified salmon to grow about twice as quickly as wild salmon. People are calling it "Frankenfish" and just in general overreacting wildly, in my humble opinion. Genetic modifications are nothing new, I believe we've been crossing various varieties of natural strains for thousands of years and now we can just do things a little more precisely. Also, if I'm not mistaken, modified strains of natural grains have staved off famine in more than a few countries.

There is one funny quote though in the article I linked to above:

If the GM salmon did somehow mix with wild salmon, it is infertile. “Our process that renders the fish sterile has been validated to 99.8 percent. They cannot breed with each other [because they are all female], and they cannot breed at all,” said Stotish.

I couldn't help but think of Jurassic Park! Luckily we're talking about salmon here and not velociraptors...

2010-08-28T08:33:00.003-04:00

As some of you may know, I work on the foreign currency desk at work, trading options, futures and spot. The following is an email exchange from this past Friday that I thought I'd share.

THE ORIGINAL EMAIL

Dear Foreign Exchange Board worker person,

Ummmm last week I could get 40.40 THB for my USD ... and now I can only get 31.35. I'm not amused. Please fix.

Sincerely,

Dying To Eat Thai

MY RESPONSE

It is with deep regret that I learn of your distress over the recently strengthened THB currency against the US dollar. I say regret, because there is nothing I can do to help you. Currency exchange rates, as you know, are determined by market forces in the (largely unregulated) interbank market. I refer you to the Bank of Thailand, who has the power to “print currency” and probably has an interest in weakening the Thai Baht to boost exports. Perhaps your plea will strike a chord in their hearts and provoke an intervention on your behalf. What’s a few paltry billion THB to them, anyway?? Before you know it, you’ll be enjoying cheap, yummy Thai food again!

Best of luck!

Yours,
“Foreign exchange board worker person”

...AND THE FINAL RESPONSE

Dear Foreign Exchange Board Worker Person,

Thank you for your prompt response and apt suggestion to resolving this dilemma. It's nice to know that at least one of us has actual influence over currency rates. I will let you know when my discussions with the Bank of Thailand have concluded, though please let me know the moment the rates move in our favor.

Yours truly,

Soon to be Bhat and Happy

2010-06-19T07:59:00.003-04:00

CNBC on the Mormons

Just the other day I'd come back to work after taking my Series 3 exam in the morning (got 94%, yeah!) and, as usual, CNBC was playing on the Mac that's over our desks. The anchor announced that the next segment coming up was on "Mormon Mission Biz" and, to be honest, I winced a little bit since typically media segments on latter-day saints are not as balanced or well-informed as I'd hope. How wrong I was! The segment was spot on. Check it out!

2010-05-04T22:01:00.005-04:00

Hercules was just the beginning...

A colleague sent me this absolutely hilarious article. Apparently, Greece is so badly in debt that they've become an attractive buyout target...

Selling Greece to Disney Solves Europe’s Woes

2010-03-21T17:33:00.003-04:00

News Round-up

I came across (or had pointed out to me) several articles in the news that I found interesting in the past few days, and I meant to post on them individually but I've fallen a bit behind. So we'll do them all at once!

iPhone can be addicting, says new survey

This story struck a little close to home, considering that I am the proud owner of an iPhone. Some of my favorite quotes:

"75% admitted falling asleep with the iPhone in bed with them"

"25 percent found the phone "dangerously alluring"

"41 percent said losing their iPhone would be 'a tragedy.'"

...and then my favorite part:

"3 percent of the students said they don't let anyone touch their iPhone; another 3 percent have named their iPhone; 9 percent have patted their iPhone and 8 percent admitted that they have at some time thought 'My iPod is jealous of my iPhone.'"

I laughed out loud when I read that last bit.

EFF dubs Apple a 'jealous feudal lord' over iPhone dev contract

This one was a little scary, but sadly not out of character for Apple. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that I love Apple's products. But one of the unfortunate facts about them is that although they do an amazing job integrating things and presenting a polished user interface, they are absolute control freaks. That's how they create such a seamless experience for users, but it has its downsides--like calling jailbreaking "illegal". That's why I cheer on rivals like Google's Android, even though I don't use it, because someone needs to challenge Apple with a more open model so that hopefully one day they will loosen up a bit.

Did Physicists Bring Down Wall Street?

I am a quant. I love it, and I'm proud of it. And, incidentally, I don't blame quants for the most recent recession. . . as usual, greed was really what was at the root of it. Scott Patterson made the following statement in a derogatory light, but I take it as a compliment: "All of Wall Street is being run by quants, in my opinion." Yeah!

Minister of Exports

I don't have a specific article on this, but President Obama came out a couple weeks ago saying that he was creating a cabinet level position over American exports, with the goal of doubling them over some time period. This, to me, seems incredibly wrong-headed. The market will figure out what we should be exporting! We don't need help from the government to do it; in fact, almost certainly what he has in mind is providing government subsidies to make our export competitive. Basically, taxpayers will be subsidizing foreign purchases of our goods. NO THANK YOU. My earnest hope is that our next president will get rid of this position, or perhaps refocus it on paving the way for more free trade agreements rather than promoting inefficiency in the worldwide markets.

New York Cabs Gouged Riders Out of Millions

Apparently, cab drivers in New York are either crooked or ham-handed, because many times they are charging their riders the wrong fare rate for getting us around this great city. From now on I'm going to make sure that I'm getting charged Fare code #1 and not #4! Incidentally I find it amazing (and awesome) that the commission can keep track by GPS of the routes each and every driver took to get their passengers to where they're going.

Small Parent Investment. Big Student Return.

The Wall Street Journal has a promotion going to let parents buy a subscription for their collegiate kids at a discounted rate, touting the fact that "students who read The Journal are 76% more likely to have a GPA of 3.5 or higher", as well as being more likely to start a full-time job after graduation and earn a high income.

The major problem I see with this is that old saying, "correlation does not imply causation". Personally, I find it FAR more likely that sharp, motivated students who do well in school are much more likely to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal rather than the other way around.

The National Debt

This slideshow was fascinating to me, mostly because I've wondered for a long time WHAT the national debt is, exactly, and who we owe it to. Now I know! Interestingly, most of it is held by the Fed, and despite the fact that we have such a huge debt investors continue to lend to us at a low rate. I don't think we can borrow forever though, and Social Security / Medicare / Obamacare seem to hang like a dark cloud over future generations...

The Broken Society

A co-worker pointed out David Brooks to me, he does pieces for the New York Times every so often, and I found this one on communalism very interesting. Is there a way to enjoy the benefits of globalization and still maintain the advantages of having a tightly knit community of people who know and care about one another? I hope so.

2010-02-28T09:56:00.006-05:00

Life on Hold

Have you ever felt like your life has been put on hold? That's how I've felt for the last few weeks. As I noted in my earlier post, we've put everything into plastic bags and had two visits from the exterminator, but we're still getting bites (albeit small ones). My own theory is that the bedbugs are mostly wiped out and we're just dealing with a few that have hatched recently. But still... we weren't supposed to be getting any bites a week after the second visit, so we had to call in and schedule another extermination. I find myself constantly looking forward to that day when we'll be able to put our things back in order and return to a normal existence. Living out of plastic bags wears on a person after awhile.

Having everything you own put into plastic bags strewn about the apartment has taught me a few things though. Despite having attempted to "trim the fat" in deciding what things to bring to NYC, on a daily basis I really only need a tiny fraction of even that. It has also been instructive to see how friends and acquaintances have reacted to our (admittedly minor) trial. I know my roommates and I have been really grateful for the support we've received. Sometimes all it took was a word of support or empathy.

With any luck, this Tuesday will wipe out the remaining pests and restore some peace and comfort to our humble abode!

2010-02-20T13:42:00.002-05:00

Pinewood Pros

My coworker has been gearing up for his son's first Pinewood Derby, and chatting with him about it brought back many good memories of making cars as a Cub Scout with my own father. Now being grown up, it never occurred to me that this kind of thing might be a source of stress for fathers! My coworker was worried about figuring out a good design and finding the right tools to cut the thing, and although as a kid it seemed like my dad played it cool, who knows if perhaps it was a pressure-on kind of moment. Well, for all you fathers out there who find yourself in this position, I'm happy to say there's a website that will solve all your Pinewood Derby problems! Check out this site that my coworker found:

Pinewood PRO

"Pinewood Derby Cars -- Car Designs -- Top Speed Products -- Free Tips"

You will not believe this site! It has ALL the hot tips, like filing down your wheels, how to lubricate everything properly, "PRO Super Speed Axles", and more! Wow. You can even buy a pre-built car... you could totally just order that, and when it arrives go into the garage and bang around for a bit, bring that puppy back in and bask in the "ooohs" and "aaahs" of your family with no one the wiser!

All of this brought back some good memories from a Church activity we had here in Manhattan back in October--YSA from around the stake built pinewood derby cars and raced them! My roommate, who goes to Sarah Lawrence, bought a couple of kits and used the shop at his school to make a couple cars, one for our apartment and one for the apartment of girls down the street that we always hang out with. Our car was named Huey, the girls' car was named Stuart... and my former home teachee had her dad (an engineer) build her a car she named Silvia. I'm proud to say that we DESTROYED the competition! Stuart and Huey came in 1st and 3rd respectively, and Silvia came in 2nd. Not only that, but there was also an "anything goes" competition, so we taped all of our winning cars together in a vertical stack and raced the new super car, "Triple Threat", and once again we trounced the competition. It was a glorious day!

My roommate tells me that a new pinewood derby activity is coming up this March. Watch out, Manhattan... the Pinewood Pros are here!

2010-02-14T15:34:00.003-05:00

"Sleep Tight...."

I don't have bedbugs...I went to Princeton!

--Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock

I never would have thought such a thing could happen to us, living in a 1st world country in the 21st century, but darned if I wasn't wrong. Seems New York has more in common with a 3rd world country than I'd like to admit, because our apartment has bedbugs!

We have not been able to figure out where they came from. Now that we know more about them, we know that we've had them since last fall, but there aren't any obvious trips abroad or shady visitors to blame. And, frankly, it wouldn't really do us that much good to know anyway.

The process for getting rid of these things is NOT fun. Not one bit. Basically you have to put everything you own in clear plastic bags for 3 weeks. Why clear? So that if there are any bugs in there, you'll see them come out looking for food and that'll be the signal to put pesticide in that bag. Once everything is in bags, pest control comes by and sprays your beds, dressers, bookshelves, closets, walls–everywhere. Apparently these little bloodsuckers can hide almost anywhere, in electronics, books, box springs, cracks in the wall molding... so you really have to be thorough to make sure they all get exterminated.

Here's what one of the little miscreants looks like. They are typically quite tiny–just a couple millimeters long, although we did find a big one that was maybe 7 mm long.

The apartment is in an upheaval. This is the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom, respectively.

The exterminators will be making their final visit this Wednesday. It can't come soon enough! I hope that will be the end of this little adventure in pest control.

2010-01-20T08:05:00.003-05:00

The L Prize

I think everyone has probably heard of the X Prize (or, more specifically, the Ansari X Prize) which awarded $10 million to the first group which could build and launch a reusable manned spacecraft twice within two weeks. That led to the SpaceShipOne and Virgin Intergalactic, whose main base, I am proud to note, is in my home state of Nuevo Mexico! After its success, many more X Prizes were announced, including the Google Lunar X Prize for the first private group to send a robot to the moon and have it send back images.

Now, in the spirit of building a better mousetrap, the government has jumped on the prize bandwagon with the "L Prize" to make a more efficient lightbulb! Check it out... I think it's a fantastic idea (dare I say, a bright idea??) Think of the energy and money savings! It's awesome. Phillips has an entry, I wonder who will be next?

2009-11-11T22:50:00.002-05:00

'Tis the Season

...to give away free WiFi, if you're Google! Check out this article today about Google's intentions to give away free WiFi to travelers in airports across the country this Christmas season.

"How kind!", you may be saying. Maybe Santa Claus joined their board!

Call me cynical, but I think they've got some legitimate business interest in the free WiFi offer. I'm wondering if they're testing to see to what extent the money gained through increased use of Google by travelers (and therefore more advertisement revenues) will offset the outlay for providing the free connectivity. Perhaps they'd just like to analyze the Internet usage patterns of road warriors as well.

I'm hoping that (1) this is Google's purpose, or something like unto it, and (2) that it is a wild success for traveler and Google alike. Suppose it was actually profitable for Google to offer the free WiFi! Maybe they'd roll it out on a wider, more permanent basis. That'd be a win for everyone.

Hey, I can dream, right?

A Duty of the Body Politick

2009-10-21T08:34:00.000-04:00

I am reporting for jury duty today at the New York Supreme Court here
in Manhattan. Below you can see the shot I snapped of the courthouse.
Quite an impressive structure! The quote on the facade reads, "True
administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government."
As of yet all I've had to do is fill out a questionnaire and wait.
Supposedly there's free WiFi in here so if I can I'll update this post
throughout the day!

2009-10-17T19:51:00.002-04:00

The Greatest Gainer

It's been slow in the making, but it's arrived: Russell and I have launched our blog about our friendly contest to see who can gain 10 lbs. of muscle first! The game is ON! Check it out:

The Greatest Gainer blog

Props to Russ for the awesome logo... Maybe this will be the next reality TV show craze!

Found at the Bookstore

2009-10-17T19:25:00.000-04:00

I thought it funny that these two books were next to each other at
Borders...

Your Tax Dollars At Work

2009-10-14T09:34:00.001-04:00

A light burned out--literally--here at work and some wires got singed.
This being Greenwich, CT, there was an overkill response. It's just
kind of funny to me because our office is just off Putnam, a busy
street in Greenwich and I must hear fire trucks go by a half dozen
times a day. I guess that gives me a pretty good idea of how many cats
get stuck in trees around this town!

2009-09-02T22:22:00.003-04:00

"Further Weight Loss is Not Advised"

Anyone who knows me also knows that I could stand to gain a few pounds. It's true! I'm what they call a "hard gainer"--putting on weight is quite a chore. Probably those of you out there with slower metabolisms are now hating me, but the fact is that being an underweight guy is pretty much as uncool as being overweight.

Thanks to a friend at my last job, I came across "Body For Life" by Bill Phillips. The book really just made a lot of sense to me. Do cardio and weights, and for your diet balance carbs and protein while avoiding fats and sugar, eating more and smaller portions. So simple right? I gradually started following the program, using their ready-made charts to keep track of my sets at the gym and paying attention for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE to what I ate.

Seriously. Before I started the BFL program, I never paid attention to the Nutrition Facts on anything I ate. I always just ordered or bought what sounded yummiest. Well, I'm older than 25 and the warranty is off, so to speak, and sure enough I noticed that the trousers that I would have fit into so easily at 19 were not fitting so well anymore. It was time for a change.

Can I just say that avoiding sugar and fats in American food is NOT easy. They sneak it into everything! One sinister example: Larabars. This bar LOOKS like its supposed to be something healthy, and it wears its "100% organic" label with a particular pride. I bought it at Westside market, thinking it would something similar to a Clif Bar (love those, by the way). But a quick check of the ingredients shows that those Larabars are basically just a big chunk of sugar and fat! The only thing they have going for them is a fair amount of fiber--but other than that you may as well buy a freakin' Snickers bar! So much for the supposed health advantages of organic food. They're not above using the same unhealthy things to reel you in as everyone else.

Anyway. So I made the difficult transition to paying attention to what I eat, together with exercising 6 times a week (3 times doing weights, 3 times doing 20 min. of intense cardio on my awesome road bike). The result?

I've lost 14 pounds and about 1 inch of waistline.

That's right. I dropped nearly 10% of my weight! Not good. I wanted to go the other direction! But the reduction of waistline was nice.

This came up recently in the physical I had last week--the doctor commented that my body mass index was well within the healthy range for my height and weight, but, as he said in the written report, "further weight loss is not advised and exercise to add bulk has been recommended." Um, yeah! Knew that.

That's where my roommates enter the picture--as it turns out, we're ALL hard gainers. And we need motivation. So in the very near future, we're going to be having a roommate vs. roommate contest to see who can gain 10 lbs of muscle first! The rules are to gain 10 lbs without gaining any fat mass (as measured by a pinch test). I'm going to win. In fact, just today a guy in the locker room said to me, "You look like you know what you're doing!" I think I'm on the right track.

So look for a link here to our new blog which will track our progress--it should be exciting. And you should all cheer me on!

2009-08-18T20:52:00.002-04:00

Hollywood is Fighting Back...Against Their Customers

The powers that be in the content creation industry (the RIAA, MPAA, motion picture studios, etc.) have some of the most terrific misadventures of any business group I can think of. I don't think I'm aware of any group that takes clear signals from the marketplace and then turns around and fights tooth and nail to make the market do something entirely different.

Case in point: MP3s. I consider myself lucky to have experienced some of the glory days of Napster, when literally TERABYTES of music were available online. You could find anything! It was a veritable musical Zion. Now, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out the message here: people want digital music. Now. Yesterday, actually. Faced with an incredible opportunity to make money, what does the RIAA do? Understandably, it goes after Napster, but rather than selling digital music, it decides the prudent course is to sue as many grandmas, clueless parents and 13 years olds as possible. It took a 3rd party (Apple's iTunes in this case) to get it right and help them do what they should have done oh so long ago: sell music online.

The latest frustration for movie studios (written up in the WSJ) has been the shift away from buying DVDs. With the advent of widely available fast Internet and services like Redbox and Netflix, it doesn't seem to make as much sense to buy lots of DVDs. Instead, having access to a vast library which can be delivered on demand for a monthly or cheap per-use fee seems like a more convenient and economical alternative.

Predictably, rather than giving people what they want, the studios have done the same thing they always do: flex their muscles in an attempt to force people to go with their old, broken model. According to the WSJ article, Warner Bros. has decided to impose a 28 day wait for Redbox before receiving new release DVDs and has asked for better terms in their Netflix agreement. But the article seems to miss the point... check out this paragraph:

"Hollywood's clampdown was entirely predictable, particularly on Redbox. Its $1-a-night rental model was popular, certainly. Coinstar reported comparable-sales growth for its DVD business of 33% in the second quarter, while pricier Blockbuster's equivalent number was down 13%. But Redbox's pricing threatens Hollywood's broader business, including the valuable DVD-sales market, which has eroded somewhat lately."

What a curious pattern: something gains enormous popularity (in this case, cheap rentals) and instead of chasing that money, the studios try to force people into the old model of buying DVDs at $20 a pop. Hollywood's reaction was indeed "entirely predictable", but not for the reasons mentioned in the WSJ. It was predictable because, as usual, Hollywood and their ilk will do anything but adapt to current market conditions.

Is it possible that someday, perhaps 100 years in the future, the content creation industry will be looking for ways to (gasp!) innovate rather than using their political and financial power in a futile attempt to do things the old way? I don't know. But I hope so.

2009-07-27T23:31:00.005-04:00

My Fail Blog

I'm sure most of you have heard of the FAILBlog, which has pictures and videos of the hilarious little mishaps, misspellings and all-around failures that one sometimes encounters in life. Today I'm presenting another big FAIL brought to you by that all-star of failure, Time Warner Cable!

Plasma widescreen TV? Check. Blu-ray player? Check. HD cable converter box? Check. Competent technical support? FAIL! We've been staring at this cheeky message for the past 3 days. Unbelievable.

But in the GOOD news, distinctly non-failure department, Tron Legacy is coming out in 2010... check out this totally awesome trailer! One of the things I love about cycling around on a road bike now is that when I'm crouched over the handlebars I like to imagine that I'm riding a lightcycle. No joke! Yeah, I'm a nerd.

2009-07-06T22:40:00.003-04:00

What News from New York?

Not much of any, apparently, to go off of what I've posted on my blog lately--a whole bunch of nothing for a couple months now! Let's get this summer kicked off right, then! One of the things I've missed dearly since my time in grad school in Pasadena is riding a bicycle every day. "What?!", you exclaim. "Not the beaches or the amusement parks or the celeb sightings??" Nope. Well OK--I miss those too. But I really do miss riding to Caltech and back every day, even though the house I was staying in was 4.5 miles and 800 feet of climb away from campus.

So, just two weekends ago, I made the circuit around NYC trying to find a bicycle shop that would sell me a bike. This is not as simple as you might think. "Why, I think I'll just stroll into any old bike shop on a nice Saturday and they'd be thrilled pink to upsell me on their latest road bike!" You, my friend, would be mistaken in this, as I found I was. Shoot, I could hardly get someone to give me the time of day! At one shop I literally stood around, looking like an idiot for 10 minutes or more before I could find someone in the shop who would say boo to me. Perhaps with a bit of a sarcastic edge, I told the tardy salesman that I was "Looking to buy a bicycle, if you guys are doing that sort of thing." He proceded to show me the one bike in the store in my size, white with rainbow stripes all up on it. I thought to myself, "This bike is fruity. I don't like it. And you guys are jerks!" Nearly in despair I made the journey to the last and seemingly least likely chance for success, MODSquad in Harlem.

MODSquad, as I was only to happy to discover, is AWESOME. Please, if you are in NYC and thinking of buying a bike, buy it there, because we should all support awesomeness. The guy running the shop, Oye, has a PhD! Can you believe that? And they actually PAY ATTENTION to customers! What a concept. I was happy to take a Felt F85 off their hands and rode home happy as a clam. A clam on a bicycle?! OK, not an apt analogy, but you know what I mean.

And here I am with the new ride! I love it. I plan to take it for a ride around the Outer Loop of Central Park tomorrow morning--few things make me excited to get up early in the morning but this is one of them!

(This post is dedicated to Melanie H, and all the other patient supporters of this humble blog. :)

Spring Day, Green Day

2009-05-15T12:26:00.000-04:00

Green Day is visiting the Best Buy down the street from my work today--
between the Today Show, book signings and CD releases, 5th Avenue is a
haven for celebrities! Here are the fans, faithfully waiting for the
band to show up...

2009-04-30T20:57:00.002-04:00

LOL + Programming = ... LOLCODE?!

Again, thanks to Ivan, I learned about an esoteric programming language called LOLCODE. As background, you'll need to know or educate yourself about lolcats, a subject I have mentioned before.

It's the coolest thing ever. Check out the hello world program!

HAI
 CAN HAS STDIO?
 VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!"
KTHXBYE

And exception handling? No problem!

HAI
 CAN HAS STDIO?
 PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
     AWSUM THX
         VISIBLE FILE
     O NOES
         INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE

Now I just need to convince my superiors that our trading platform really ought to be written in LOLCode!

HAI
 PLZ OPEN TRADING PROGRAM "BEAUCOUPBUCKS"?
     AWSUM THX
         MAKE A BILLION CHEEZBURGERS ON STOCK MARKET
     O NOES
         SELL ALL THE CHEEZBURGERS!!1!one!!eleventy
KTHXBYE

2009-04-30T20:48:00.004-04:00

Solo Cajun... Triangle?!

One of the guys I work with, Ivan, pointed out a piece of music that was featured on NPR. It features a "solo Cajun triangle". That's it. A triangle. No other instruments. The same rhythms, over and over and over again. Check it out!

Listening to that clip is OK for about 5 seconds. After that, it becomes increasingly annoying. After about 30 seconds I feel like pleading with the soloist. "Could you PLEASE mix this up a bit?" But no. It's the same mind-numbing notes for 5 minutes straight. Oh, except for the last 3 seconds, where we go into the "big finale". Forget waterboarding, I think the CIA could get people to talk far more effectively by using this CD!

Early Bird Gets the... Vegetable?!

2009-04-30T06:59:00.000-04:00

When I walked by the Rock this morning, where people were gathering
for the filming of the Today show, there was an enthusiastic group of
people dressed as vegetables. Apparently, May is "Wellness Month"!

2009-04-15T21:44:00.002-04:00

eBay or Export?

OK, one more thing really quick. There's a clothing store right by my office on 5th Avenue that's been liquidating their inventory for the past couple days, and I guess they have a bunch of men's designer suits and such. One time they actually had a pretty sizable line of people waiting to get in! And they have signs outside the store like this:

I laughed out loud when I saw that! Now, wait just a second. If they could make more by eBaying this stuff, why don't THEY do it? Or "export" it, whatever that's supposed to mean. I also love the typical New York poor spelling. The fact that they explicitly state that they are "authorized" seems like a dead giveaway that they aren't. No wonder they want other people to pawn off their goods on eBay...

2009-04-15T21:31:00.003-04:00

"Guess Who Eats Together At the Carnegie Deli..."

"Bowser from Sha-Na-Na And Arthur Fonzarelli!" No, actually recently it was Russ and I, hosting a couple of visitors from California. Wow! So good. And the sandwiches are huge! I only ate half of mine, partly because I wanted to save some of the goodness for lunch the following day and also because I didn't want to feel like I was going to explode. Definitely the best corned beef sandwich I've ever had, although at $15 it certainly wasn't a bargain. Still, it's cool to see all the signed photos of celebrities around the Deli and take in the atmosphere. Our visitors liked it too, and they were pretty funny. One asked, and I am not making this up, if we thought they might have mayonnaisse. Who's heard of a deli that didn't stock mayonnaisse?? Ha. It's OK, she's from Orange County, after all... (this is where I duck to avoid things being thrown at me by loyal Californians.)

And yes, I did have the Hanukkah Song stuck in my head the whole time we were eating there.

2009-04-13T08:02:00.002-04:00

Tax Freedom Day

Today is Tax Freedom Day! What is that, you ask? I didn't know either. Apparently, an organization called Tax Foundation calculates what fraction of the working year American spend (on average) to pay their taxes, and this year Tax Freedom Day falls on April 13th. So from January 1st until today, all the work we've done has been just to pay federal, state and local taxes. Yikes! And that's not counting the stiumuls packages which someone, someday will have to pay for. Sort of a sobering thought.

2009-04-10T12:15:00.003-04:00

Evolution is On My Side

My Dad emailed me this comic today. Who knows, this may work for me!

2009-04-08T04:56:00.002-04:00

"iPod on Wheels"?!

I think everyone is aware at this point that the Big 3 automakers are in serious trouble. Word on the street is that GM is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. So what's their play to show that they're hip, cool, creative and viable? Check it out: The Puma.

From the article: "The iPod literally transformed how we perceive entertainment and music, and now it's progressed to the iPhone and different software applications. We think this has the same transformational potential," says Larry Burns, vice president of research and development for GM.

Are you kidding me? THIS is the iPod of cars? I don't think so. No. No, no, no.

Given the difficulties Americans have coming to terms with things like Smart cars, do we really think they're going to buy what looks like it would be better termed the GM-Segway Rickshaw?!

Can you imagine James Bond jumping into one of these to give high speed chase to some criminals? If so, they'd better be on bicycles because the Puma only goes 35 mph.

Let's hope bankruptcy and reorganization can save GM, because I don't think the Puma will.

2009-04-08T04:42:00.003-04:00

Written in the Stars

I am going to be a billionaire! How do I know? Check out this article from Forbes, "Billionaire Clusters". Let's do the checklist!

"First, a significant percentage of billionaires had parents with a high aptitude for math."

Check! Mom did mathematics, Dad did physics.

"Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season."

Check!

"More than 20% of the 292 of the self-made American billionaires on the most recent list of the World's Billionaires have either never started or never completed college."

OK I missed this one, but look at the next point...

"Billionaires who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: More than 55% of them have graduate degrees."

Check check!

They mention some other things like working for Goldman-Sachs and being in Skull and Bones, so I'll substitute working for a hedge fund and being a member of... um... Phi Kappa Phi?

It's a sure thing!

Actually, I think this article makes a lot of sense given a recent book I read called "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell, whose thesis is that people who are very successful typically reach the heights they do both because of talent and, much more importantly, access to the right opportunities. Highly recommended book!

2009-04-01T06:14:00.005-04:00

April Fool!

This morning when I was checking my email I noticed something new at the top: "Gmail AutopilotTM by CADIE" which claims to monitor your outgoing messages, learn your style and reply to email for you. Given the fancy adaptive Bayesian spam filters, etc. that are in use now I actually found myself wondering if this could possibly be true, and then it hit me--it's April Fool's Day! The details Google posted on the would-be proxy emailer, CADIE, a "Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity", are pretty hilarious!

And, of course, it's a special day for Gmail since it was announced on April 1, 2004. Ah, I remember that day well, and it seemed like it had to be a joke too because 1 GB of storage was so ridiculously high compared to what everyone else was offering at the time. Way to go Google for raising the bar!

2009-03-28T09:10:00.004-04:00

Rednecks Need a Bank, Too

I was looking at bankrate.com this morning because I feel like my current 1.5% APY with ING Direct is a little paltry at the moment, and the best money market savings account on their site is... the Redneck Bank?! Apparently, this bank is for real:

Redneck Bank

Wow. They certainly didn't choose the name to inspire confidence or respectability, but over 3% APY in the current economic climate is impressive... And who doesn't want an ATM card that proclaims loudly "REDNECK BANK" with a neighing donkey on it?

2009-03-24T19:57:00.002-04:00

"We're in the money..."

So two of my work colleagues and I have now all opened Roth IRA accounts with an online trading brokerage and the past couple weeks have been crazy as we've tried to learn how trading works and make our richly-deserved killing in the markets. While they both had wire transfers and were able to start trading right away, I was cheap and had a check sent to them, which took both the snail mail time and then a hold while they waited for the check to clear! Yeah, dumb I know. So I definitely missed the bottom of the market, but on Monday in pre-market trading I put in a couple limit orders for SPY which both executed. My first stock trades ever! And that day it went up 7%, making me a grand sum of about $60 (net of commission fees). Sweet, glorious victory!

OK seriously though, I know those are pretty pathetic gains. But it's amazing how just having a little money in stocks makes you want to constantly watch the finance pages at Yahoo and Google. Every swing of the market causes excitement or regret! Weird. I can see why your 401(k) won't let you change allocations quickly, because it'd be too tempting to become a full time day trader.

For now I consider the money I've put in there as mostly a nice way to try things out and educate myself on real-world trading of stocks and options. It's really fascinating! Time to get educated on this stuff... "Options, Futures and Other Derivatives" might make for some light subway reading!

2009-03-12T22:28:00.003-04:00

Childhood Dreams

Everyone has them, right? One of mine, and one that certainly sheds a lot of light on my personality, was to build a robot. I was constantly begging my dad to buy me a welding torch because I was convinced that to make a serious effort at the project, you had to have one. And if I happened across stray wires or transistors, I hoarded them together, figuring that I was assembling vital parts to my future creation.

Fast forward to 2009. A couple days ago, my dad emailed me a link to the most amazing thing. Check it out... the LEGO Mindstorms NXT! Boy, what I wouldn't have given to have something like that as a kid! A programmable robot from LEGO. I would have died and gone to heaven!

While I never did build a robot, I did learn a lot about computers, which has led me to my current job in management/IT consulting. And it just so happens that my officemate owns a robot company! He must have figured out the whole welding torch thing. Birds of a feather...

Incidentally, another childhood dream for me was to have a gadget that would do phone, TV and watch functions all in one, and small enough that I wear it on on my wrist. Well, although that exact dream hasn't come true, I consider my iPhone to be even better! Wow, what if I could go back and show my 8 year old self what was coming down the road! Too cool.

2009-03-07T15:06:00.002-05:00

The Hit List

It's time to end the dry season on my blog, and what better way to start it off than with some good old fashioned complaining? Seriously.

#1 Adidas Metro Sackpack

So #1 on today's "Hit List" is: my Adidas gym bag! I found this little beauty, the Adidas Metro Sackpack, on amazon.com... what a deal right? Less than $15 for a nice little gym bag! WRONG. First of all, getting a bag with strings for the straps may look kind of cool but in actual practice isn't comfortable. That and this thing is so shoddily constructed that it just falls apart. Check this out!

Yeah, the left side came untied just as I was leaving the office on my way to the gym (it was only held in place by a knot). And check out the seams on this thing:

So this thing is just coming apart. I guess sometimes you get what you pay for! Next in the hit list...

#2 Equinox Gym Advertising Campaign

Speaking of the gym, I joined Equinox on the last day of last year and have been generally very happy with them. Alysha, the main membership recruiter at the club I go to, is a genuinely nice lady and I've had nothing but awesome experiences with her. The gym itself is really nice and has relatively new and very well-maintained equipment so I can't complain about any of that.

But Equinox advertises itself as a sort of return to Roman excess. Their vision is that Equinox is the gym for the Beautiful and the Damned. Just outside the front entrance to the gym I go to, they have a flat screen running this commercial on a loop. (I don't want to disgrace my blog by actually embedding the video here.) But if you check it out, skip to about 2:00 minutes into it and you'll see my point. What the heck? And OK, even if their name is Equinox, the fact that their big parties are on the vernal and autumnal equinoxes also smacks strongly of going for a pagan image, IMHO.

So anyway, as much as I love the gym, whoever is managing their advertising is way off in left field. I should probably email someone about that.

Chicago Impressions

2008-12-19T11:10:00.000-05:00

This is the view from my terminal in Chicago, waiting for my flight to
Albuquerque. Even if the weather is a bit iffy, they sure make it a
nice place to be!

2008-12-18T16:02:00.003-05:00

Legally Speaking

Do you ever find those legal disclaimers at the end of emails rather hilarious? Do those really hold any weight in court? You know the ones I mean! Here's one I got from a friend recently:

Disclaimer

The information in this email and any attachments may contain proprietary and confidential information that is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, retention or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. When addressed to our clients or vendors, any information contained in this e-mail or any attachments is subject to the terms and conditions in any governing contract. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately contact the sender and delete the e-mail.

When I wrote back, I made it my own:

"Disclaimer"
The information in this email and any attachments contain a cool message just for you! :) If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, retention or use of the contents of this information is totally cool with me. When addressed to friends or dates, any information contained in this e-mail or any attachments is subject to the terms and conditions of continuing to be an awesome person. If you have received this e-mail in error, please still feel that you are loved. <3

I like mine best!

2008-12-18T08:52:00.003-05:00

Are You Taking Notes On This?

OK how many times have you come to a problem, and you KNOW you looked up the solution before, either you found the answer in some forum through a Google search, or you emailed someone, or you talked to a co-worker... you did the hard work to figure something out and now the same things has come up again and you can't for the LIFE of you remember what you did? Well that has happened to me an unnerving number of times. One fabulous solution would be to take notes each day on what you do and find out, and then file them in a way that makes it easy to find again. There are a legion of applications to do this; some notable standouts are:

Journler (Mac)

This app has a sweet GUI and allows tagging, linking, etc. as well as taking audio and video notes instead of just text! Highly recommended. But it's Mac only!

Evernote (all platforms)

Awesome onling clipping application. You can save and annotate just about anything. Privacy drawback: all your data is saved online on Evernote's server. Bad news if you want to take notes on senstive, proprietary information, for example.

TiddlyWiki (all platforms)

This was the perfect solution for my problem! It uses the wildly popular Wiki format, allows tagging and linking of notes, very lightweight, only requires a web browser AND your data is stored locally so there are no privacy concerns.

2008-09-29T07:40:00.002-04:00

LDS Walking Tour

Despite the foreboding weather (it's been raining the last few days) this past Saturday I decided to join a walking tour of some sites of interest to Latter-day Saints (aka Mormons) in Lower Manhattan. Below is 46 1/2 John Street, where Elijah Fordham lived--one of the earliest converts in New York City. He assisted Parley P. Pratt with his missionary efforts in the city, which eventually found some success but were initially rebuffed by the citizens of the city which Parley found to be unfriendly, busy and somewhat rude. The scenery in the city has changed but maybe the demeanor hasn't!

In the lower right here you see Kent Larsen, our tour guide.

This is 46 1/2 John Street, which is now a (very small) park with a bust of Charles Wesley. In the upper right you can see a mural which depicts life as it would have looked around the time that Parley P. Pratt and Elijah Fordham preached in NYC.

The final site on the tour was "Old Slip" at the New York City harbor, where a plaque is hung to commemorate Samuel Brannan, who led a group of Saints from NYC around the tip of South America and then all the way around to San Franciso--a journey of 20,000 miles total! Our guide informed us that the ship they sailed with was much less grand than the artist's conception on the plaque--it was more like a schooner with probably just a couple of sails. Brannan and co. did take a printing press with them which had been used earlier to publish "The Mormon" in New York City and used it in San Francisco to establish the first newspaper there, the "California Star".

Below are Jason and Jessi, two friends of mine who were also on the tour. Jason took us on a "behind the scenes" look at his work where the new World Trade Center towers were designed! Below they are standing next to a scale model of how the financial district of Manhattan will look when the new towers are completed.

Here's a close-up of the model--the tallest tower is the Freedom Tower. Behind it you see an unusually shaped building (looks like something from Superman's Fortress of Solitude) and at the base of the two towers and a bit to the right you can see the footprints of the former towers 1 and 2 of the WTC, which will made into reflecting pools with waterfalls along the edges. Jason told us that they have been designed so that visitors can view them from underneath! All in all, quite an impressive design.

2008-09-24T22:17:00.002-04:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's my 50th post, AND it's my birthday! Yay! :) It's been a busy day, featuring, among other things, a prank call from the Web (hoaxcall.com) and an evening trip to Junior's Most Fabulous Cheesecake and Desserts with the gang! Below you'll see me, triumphant, with my piece of chocolate mousse cheesecake! SO good.

Before the candle...

After the candle; made my wish! It's gonna be a good year. :)

2008-09-20T16:58:00.005-04:00

Brooklyn Bridge

If you've been following me on Twitter then you know that I walked the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time last weekend. Here's a couple photos!

Walking out on the bridge... you could look down through the wooden slats here and see the freeway far below! Vertigo...

Looking up at the cablework overhead...quite impressive! Obviously, my iPhone's camera has some issues with bright lights at night. Time to get a nice DSLR!

This is a cool building we saw in the evening fog before walking out across the Bridge. I thought this shot turned out rather nicely! I'd like to go back at some point and find out what building it is...

Live at Macys

2008-09-20T13:32:00.001-04:00

Amie Miriello performing at Macys in Manhattan--never heard of her but
she's pretty good!

http://www.amiemiriello.com

2008-09-08T22:24:00.002-04:00

A Jaunt Down Park Ave

A week or so ago I took a stroll down Park Avenue and took a few pictures. The first set is from the corner of 53rd and Park Ave--there's a courtyard on the northwest corner that has a bunch of Hello Kitty sculptures! Why? Who knows! But they're kinda cool. Plus I know my brother Neil would appreciate them. So here they are!

Kitty doing what she does best...

Cheer up, emo kid!

This one's got an Easter basket?!

The largest of the statues looms over the hapless inhabitants of NYC like an overly cheerful Godzilla...

What do you do when you're super-rich and bored on Park Avenue? Got a seven figure bonus and no idea what to do with it? How about turning in that old Lexus for a brand new Ferrari! Yep there's a Ferrari dealership right on Park Ave for your impulse shopping convenience!

Ok yeah, I'll admit it, I'm just jealous because I've always wanted a yellow Ferrari!

2008-09-06T23:07:00.002-04:00

Hello Hanna!

This weekend we've been getting hammered with rain here in Manhattan from tropical storm Hanna, and for some crazy reason last night (at Jian's suggestion) we all decided to walk about 20 blocks in the rain! It was warm and coming down like cats and dogs and I felt like I was in a scene out of "Singing in the Rain"! By the time we got on the subway we were all soaked, of course, but having a good time...

It's a little late for the umbrella now!

(l-r) Jian, Carolyn, Heidi

Jen (left) and Rustin (right) look pretty happy!

Learning French at the US Open?!

2008-08-30T18:12:00.000-04:00

I cheered on France's Gael Monfils to victory against Argentina's
David Nalbandian--a great match! Gael liked to slide around the court
and take crazy behind-the-back shots and just generally worked the
crowd. I learned some French from Gael's avid fans: all-EH guy-EEL
("go Gael!")

Underdog

2008-08-30T15:01:00.000-04:00

This match is Coin v. Mauresmo, both from France... earlier in the
Open Coin had an upset victory vs. #1 ranked Ivanovic. Right now she's
down 4-6, 4-5...

First match of the day

2008-08-30T12:06:00.000-04:00

Querry v. Karlovic

US Open

2008-08-30T11:51:00.000-04:00

Here we are at the 2008 US Open--here you see Arthur Ashe stadium
which our cheap grounds admission tickets don't admit us BUT we can go
to all the other venues. Off to see some world class tennis!

2008-08-26T22:25:00.002-04:00

Shake Shack!

One more thing quick! This week's FHE was at the Shake Shack, a fun little place in Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District. Why is it called the Flatiron District, you ask? Good question! Here's why:

The Flatiron Building, of course! Looking up at it made me half expect to see Spiderman swinging down from the sky...

2008-08-26T22:05:00.002-04:00

Frrrrrrozen in Manhattan

It's about time I finally posted the pictures I took from our adventures last Saturday night! We set out with a single purpose: to sample the famous Frrozen Hot Chocolate dessert that all women know about from the movie Serendipity featuring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack. We made our way over to the Upper East Side and found out that we weren't the only ones who had that idea--there was an 60 to 90 minute wait for a table! So we left our names and went in search of food. Johnny Rockets seemed like a good choice, and when we arrived the help was having a good time dancing to the song on the jukebox:

However they wouldn't let our friend Russ stay with the pizza he bought next door and so the rest of us (perhaps 7 total?) left as well in a show of solidarity (and also making their poor Gastfreundschaft an unwise business decision). After grabbing a burger at Wendy's (which I was very excited about!) we made our way back to Serendipity 3. While we were bored we snapped a few pics...

...outside...

...and inside...

Yeah it's an unusual place, to say the least! Lots of character. Finally, the long-awaited desserts arrived:

Oh. My. Gosh. SO GOOD! It's 14 kinds of chocolate blended into an incredible luscious slush that will transport you to another plane of chocolate enjoyment! And guess what? Apparently Oprah had the leverage to get Serendipity to give up the secret recipe so you can now make your own!

River Trip!

2008-08-23T07:34:00.000-04:00

Members of the Manhattan 8th ward gathering at the temple for a river
tubing trip early this morning.

Morning at Lincoln Center

2008-08-23T07:32:00.000-04:00

2008-08-20T21:29:00.006-04:00

In Da Club

Last night I went with Jonathan (my officemate), his girlfriend Dorota and Carolyn Quebe (a girl from the ward) to the Kobe Club to enjoy some Restaurant Week lovin'! For those who haven't heard of it, Restaurant Week is a space of time (often longer than just a week) where some of the top restaurants in NYC put together a fixed price, 3 course menu so that you can sample their fare at a reasonable price. "Reasonable" in this case means $35 a plate instead of something closer to double that amount.

This place has some serious class!! Most impressive were the ~100 samurai swords hanging from the ceiling:

The whole place is supposed to be inspired by a Japanese samurai theme but to me it seemed more like a gothic theme with the hanging chains, mirrors and swords. If I were a vampire, Kobe Club is the place where I would go to eat. Make that steak blood rare, if you please!

Here's a snapshot of the appetizer I chose (tuna something-or-other, it was pretty good):

And for the entree we had the chopped sirloin. Even the leftovers at this place were amazing! Highly recommended. Maybe when I'm feeling more prosperous I'll go back and order the real steak!

Chocolate in NYC

2008-08-09T23:33:00.001-04:00

Tonight we again went out for sushi followed by dessert at Max Brenner
"Chocolate by the bald man" a young trendy place to get decadent
chocolate confections. In the photo below are Carolyn, Andrew
(hidden), Jean, Russell, Rich, Jen, and Jian.

Munchies and Crunchies

2008-08-08T07:37:00.001-04:00

This morning is special at PCI because it's bagel (and donut) day!
It's a much-beloved tradition to go out and provide a light breakfast
on Fridays on the company tab and since I'm usually the first one in
the office here at around 7 AM, I make the run to Dunkin Donuts and
Blue Flowers to get the goods! Here's what I bought this morning. Yum!

Good Morning, 5th Avenue!

2008-08-08T07:27:00.001-04:00

This is a photo of the lobby of the building I work in on 5th Avenue--
yes, it IS undergoing renovations right now so "please excuse the
mess". Apparently it's going to be a glorious place when it's
finished, with a big screen LCD TV and all those modern amenities. For
now though it's not quite what you'd hope for if, say, you were
hosting a client!

2008-07-31T22:08:00.003-04:00

A Fond Farewell

Today was the last day for Steven Bergsieker, a member of the ASA Team that I work with at Princeton Consultants (PCI)—he's off to join a startup in the Bay Area! We're all very sad to see him go... as per PCI tradition we had a going away lunch for him, this one at the Salt Creek Grille. Check it out—the first photo I took with my iPhone! (Sorry for the blurriness, I need to work on having a steady hand for these indoor shots...)

That's pretty much the whole team there... going clockwise around the table and starting in the lower left corner we have Jonathan Wall, Simon Lee, Steven, Mike Albert, Ivan Rankenburg, Anthony Foglia, Fred Scheifele and Tyler Hone.

We'll miss you Steven and good luck!!

2008-07-30T18:43:00.003-04:00

It's so cool... but...

...I do have a couple complaints about the new iPhone. Don't get me wrong—I think it's fabulous in general! But here are some things on my wishlist:

Copy and paste
Flash in Safari
Alternative web browsers, e.g., Firefox
MMS messaging
Sending SMS to multiple recipients
GPS with step-by-step directions
Tethering

C'mon Apple, no cut and paste?! That doesn't seem like an insurmountable UI/programming challenge and people have been requesting this since the dawn of the iPhone. Hopefully this will come in a future firmware revision?

Flash. Apparently Adobe is working on this but it isn't out there yet. Considering how many websites use it, this is a pretty major omission. I've already been annoyed a couple times to load a webpage on the iPhone and instead of seeing a spiffy flash animation I need a sad little Lego block with a question mark on it. This means that, for now, I can't watch my favorite web-based comic...

Multiple SMS and MMS. Apparently both of these could be remedied by "jailbreaking" older versions of the iPhone firmware and downloading (non-Apple approved) third party apps. From what I understand not many of those apps have been ported over yet to the newly jailbroken version 2.0 firmware. I think Apple basically expects you to replace those usages with email, but I'm unconvinced.

Tethering actually can be solved now by jailbreaking the phone and then following these directions. And finally GPS...can we say killer iPhone app?

On a positive note--I've got OmniFocus for iPhone now working and I LOVE it! The iPhone makes a pretty sleek and sexy personal assistant.

Just our luck

2008-07-28T15:45:00.000-04:00

This was my reaction on getting the text just now from Josh that there is currently NO line at the Apple store for iPhones (he works at the 5th Ave store). Yes, I feel pretty silly. Jon Wall, my co-worker who also waited with me this morning and got a phone, had some choice words on hearing the news which I shall omit here. ;)

Yes I am ridiculous

2008-07-28T07:39:00.000-04:00

I had to wait in line at 4 AM but I finally got it... the 3G iPhone, baby!

At the MoMA

2008-07-26T16:27:00.001-04:00

My favorite childhood soup is... fine art?!

Burgers from a vending machine?!

2008-07-25T21:33:00.000-04:00

This store sells chicken nuggets, cheeseburgers and all types of other fast food in an automat! This whole neighborhood is very hip and very Asian. Just had sushi for dinner and now exploring the area ...

Going out Friday night

2008-07-25T20:11:00.000-04:00

My friend Andrew and new acquaintance Jean at Cooper Square next to the mysterious 'black cube'... It'll rotate if you get enough people to push!

Cool car!

2008-07-13T20:11:00.000-04:00

NYC apparently likes to experiment with alternative modes of transportation! This one's called the 'T-Rex'

2008-07-12T21:34:00.000-04:00

The first rat I've seen on the NYC subway... Reminds me of Cloverfield!

2008-07-12T15:53:00.000-04:00

A chalk drawing near my apartment ... not too many republicans around here!

2008-07-06T20:48:00.003-04:00

Happy July 4th!

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend! My friend Heidi Jo Gilbert, Disney aficionado and aspiring animator, was in town with her sister this weekend and we had some good times out here. I was feeling ambitious so we went out the the brand-new IKEA that opened out in Brooklyn to try to find some furniture for my room. First we went there on the 4th to scope out the goods and see what might work and were able to find some nice stuff including a bookcase, a dresser and an office chair. Maybe my days of living out of my Travelpro suitcases are nearing an end? That's certainly what I was hoping. So for the 5th I reserved a Zipcar and wrote out directions for getting to IKEA, hoping to haul our spiffy finds back to the apartment. I have to be honest and tell you that I was NOT looking forward to this. Having so far just been an observer of the total insanity that is New York City driving, I was anything but anxious to become a participant. But, like with most things, you learn by just jumping in and trying it out. Typically life slaps you upside the head a few times and then you catch on. So it was with this trip! We made it just fine to the southern tip of Manhattan and through the Battery tunnel over to Brooklyn where we began searching for signs for the Gouwanis highway indicated in our Google directions. Little did we know, we were already on it!! So we searched in vain until we saw a huge billboard. "IKEA Brooklyn, exit 26 off the BQE". Yeah, thanks New York. The BQE?? What the heck is that? I made the (correct) guess that it must be the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway so we looked for signs for the fabled BQE. In a hilarious turn of fate, another name for the Gouwanis highway is... the BQE. So all the time we were frantically looking for the highway we were already on. Finally the highway proudly announced that we were going to cross the Verrazano Bridge into... Staten Island. Argh! NOT where we wanted to go. And for the privilege of crossing the illustrious bridge, we were honored to pay 10 smackers. The nice guy at the bridge toll booth informed us that we had, in fact, gone too far. Shocker! So we turned around, got back on the BQE/Gouwanis/Staten Island Expressway and again saw the IKEA sign which told us to get off at exit 26. For some reason which is totally beyond me, when you're coming from the other direction the sign for IKEA comes well BEYOND exit 26 where you needed to get off, a fact that it fails to mention. Oh well. We did make it to IKEA, taking only an extra half hour and 10 bucks more than expected. And there were able to get almost everything (sans the dresser) so I'm not quite out of the living-out-of-a-suitcase woods yet but will be as soon as that dresser is back in stock!

One of the highlights of the weekend was watching the Macy's-sponsored fireworks over the East River with some other kids from the Manhattan 8th ward where I now attend. The police made a good show by flying helicopters overhead with red and blue lights, and the fire department had a boat spewing blue and red water (it had run out of dye in the picture below):

The fireworks were really well done, including several volleys of smiley faces and a couple really bizarre fireworks I'd never seen before: bars of different colors that just hang in the air for a long while before burning out, and something that looks like rockets that bob and weave up and down as they cruise along, making a path that reminds you of a Chinese dragon. The Empire State building was lit up in patriotic style:

The day after the Fourth we made a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the "Met") and saw some neat stuff including this painting that I really liked:

(the cell phone camera really doesn't do it justice) and this painting of the Matterhorn which reminded me of my Dad, who served a Mormon mission in southern Germany and Switzerland:

We also stopped by Nintendo World in the Rockefeller Plaza, where we saw cool vintage Nintendo stuff like a Game Boy that survived a bomb attack and a DS signed by the creator of Super Mario Brothers as well as all the latest merchandise. I let Pikachu get a picture with me, too!

At the end of the 5th we happened to stop by the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. I've been wanting to get Rock Band for awhile now and since my roommates have a PS3 and Xbox 360 I was dangerously close to buying it. So I asked Heidi if I should get it. Well, that was a bad idea because she's also an addict! She very convincingly argued that I definitely SHOULD get the PS3 version because it comes with a wireless guitar (Xbox version is wired), a USB hub AND I could play against all my friends back in LA online. Who could withstand all those amazing enticements? Not me! So I gave in. I bought Rock Band and we hauled it through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds in Times Square (garnering some enthusiastic comments along the way from fellow Rock Band fans passing by!) and onto the subway. Check it out:

There it is in all its glory, getting in the way of everyone who was unlucky enough to be riding with us. The plan now is for Times Squared (the name of my band's save record on Rock Band) to have a coast-to-coast smackdown with friends from the Glendale 7th ward back in LA... just another round in the endless LA vs. NYC battle!

2008-07-03T01:02:00.002-04:00

Adventures in NYC

Today was my first time working out of the NYC PCI offices and I love it! Only a half hour commute (instead of two and a half hours!) and it's really quite cozy. I arrived at our offices at 590 5th Avenue at 8 AM and was actually the first one there--luckily I was able to make a quick call to Vic Levy who also works out of NYC and he gave me the relevant access codes to get in. So I went up to our 16th floor space, thinking I was alone, until I went into the restroom and found one of the most numerous inhabitants of Manhattan:

Yep! A cockroach. He put up a good fight but eventually lost valiantly and was subsequently buried at sea. Not long after I was able to claim a desk next to Jon Wall, a fellow Caltech alum who is also working on the ASA project. Here's what my desk and view look like:

This office is smack dab in the middle of Midtown Manhattan which has a mixture of ultra-modern skyscrapers (like the residential building you can see through the window above) contrasted with some really "classic" buildings, as you can see here:

It's kind of a weird contrast, with an ancient building pouring out smoke from a chimney and all around it more modern concepts. After work I met up with my friend Elise McKenna and her friend Emmy to kick around town a bit. I met them just outside central park and we happened to see the Cash Cab! They were just finishing up with some contestants and we hoped we might be able to get on--between us we had a physics PhD, an MD/PhD student and an environmental engineering grad student which seemed like a stacked deck (as long as they didn't ask about pop culture!) Here's the Cash Cab parked out on the curb, getting filmed as we watched:

This show happens to be one of Elise's favorites so she decided to get an autograph from the Cash Cab driver. Check it out!

So that was our brush with celebrity. Just another day in NYC!

2008-06-30T22:42:00.003-04:00

Dinner is Served!

Since eating out every meal is neither cheap nor healthy, AND I don't have a super cushy situation a la LA where I didn't have to go grocery shopping or make dinner hardly at all... the time has come. Yes. I must cook for myself! About time, you say. You would be right.

So my wonderful mother has been sending me tasty (and easy!) recipes to try out. Tonight's is called "Farmer's Casserole" and goes pretty much like this: take cheese, hash browns, eggs, evaporated milk, ham and onions, throw it all in a pan and bake for an hour. How can that possibly go wrong?? And indeed, it even worked for me. Check it out:

Yum! Not only that, but I have about three lunches worth of leftovers (good thing too, because those ingredients cost about $12 in all, so I have to get a few meals out of it to get any savings!) Thank you Mom!!

2008-06-28T11:37:00.002-04:00

Beat the Heat!

Today is the day... that I got A/C installed in my room!! After suffering through a week and a half of boiling in the muggy summer days of NYC today finally came--the first day I could actually go get a unit. During previous trips I'd seen some Haier air conditioning units at Bed, Bath & Beyond but online they had TERRIBLE reviews. amazon had good reviews and prices on a Frigidaire unit but I didn't want to wait for the thing to ship. Luckily my roommate told me about a local chain called P. C. Richards on 86th, only 3 stops away on the subway. I looked them up online and found out they had a special on the Frigidaire unit I wanted for only $99.97! Bonus! So I went there first thing this morning and saw the unit in-store with a sticker of $150. So I get help from the salesman there. "Need any help?" "Yeah I'm looking for an A/C unit for an 84 sq. ft. room" and he tells me the small Frigidaire will do great for that. Then I tell him I saw it for $100 online. "Oh yeah, let me look it up, I think I can get you that price..." so he punches it up on the computer. "Yeah, $139 and I can throw in a free warranty!" And so I say, "Can you check again, because I'm certain I saw it for $100 on the internet." Sure enough, the computer "accepts" the price of $99.97. He asks if I want a store in-home warranty (which, oddly enough, costs $40). No thanks! Manufacturer's warranty is good enough for me. Then he hauls it out and I test the weight. Hmmm, heavy but not too bad. I'll skip the $60 delivery charge and take it on the subway. I would have taken it on the cab but I didn't have any cash on me and my stupid ATM card from Chase hasn't arrived yet. So, taking frequent breaks, I hauled it onto the subway, took it three stops and hauled it 2 more blocks and 6 flights of stairs up to my room. Check it out!

A/C on the stairs up to the apartment. Whew!!

In my room, ready to be unpacked. Cue "Also Sprach Zarathustra" from 2001!

Installed! Working and cooling! Cue the "Hallelujah Chorus"!

2008-06-25T23:11:00.004-04:00

Bob Villa Where are You??

A job that would take him about 60 seconds took me an hour. Tonight I installed the blinds on my window (finally!) and it wasn't without some unexpected twists. Literally. The first two times I tried to put the wood screws through the brackets and into the wooden window frame, the screws would get up about half of their length and then the head would twist and snap off! My only recourse at this point was to get my Leatherman and snap off the rest of the screw (and feel stupid). Who ya gonna call? Yep--Dad! Sure enough he had some sage advice for me: drill a bigger hole! Duh... So using a drill bit up one size did the trick. And miracle of miracles, the blinds are up and reasonably level:

And most importantly, they have THIS feature:

Finally I can change in my room and not feel weird sleeping in here!

Also a quick update on working at Princeton Consultants (aka PCI): the commute is killing me. Which is why I need to get to bed ASAP. It's about 2.5 hours from leaving the apartment to walking into the Princeton office. So I need to catch on to things quickly and get moved over to the NYC office! The project I'm on is called ASA Investments, it's basically a hedge fund that PCI runs for a client. We can't talk about it much (not a problem for me right now because I don't KNOW much), even within the company--my fellow teammates tell other PCIers that we are working on a death ray! I like it a lot there and I have much to learn. More updates to come...

2008-06-22T23:04:00.004-04:00

"We're goin' to New York City 'cause it's four to one, yeah we're goin' to New York City gonna have some fun!"

"Four girls for every boy..." Ten points to anyone who caught the pun on the classic song "Surf City"! The odds for the men are definitely good in the Manhattan 8th ward. There are two Relief Societies (North and South, with the dividing line at 94th Street) and today in Elder's Quorum I would estimate that we had less than 30 men. Yikes! During the construction on the Lincoln Center building (where the temple is) we are combined with the Manhattan 3rd YSA ward so it's like a YSA conference every week, with the wards trading off on which bishopric organizes sacrament meeting. Funnily enough I connected with two people I knew from student wards in Heritage Halls! NYC is quite the crossroads.

Also today I went to the new move-in meeting during Sunday School to fill out an information sheet and get introduced to the two wards. To be honest it felt weird being on the receiving end, since in my old ward as 2nd counselor in the bishopric the new move-in committee was one of my responsibilities and I was the one greeting people and trying to help things run smoothly.

I attempted to sign up for the M8 ward's dinner groups, where YSA (presumably) get together for a Sunday potluck dinner and socialize. I emailed someone about it on Friday and she said something would get arranged but never heard back from her...oh well. So I watched "Empire of the Sun", a fantastic film by the way, with my roommate Josh and had a pretty chill afternoon. And I now have extra ice cream in the freezer, which is never a bad thing!

It's been raining off and on the past couple of days and so it had become more necessary than ever to get those dowel rods cut and installed so that I don't come home tomorrow after work to find that rain has come through the window and voided the warranty on my brand new mattress. So I undertook my first EVER "home improvement" project, if you can call it that. Check out the results:

The two rods

Rod detail

Battle wounds!

I got better with the saw after the first couple of times I cut the rods and managed not to hack myself with it anymore than what you see there. I guess I take after my dad who says that he can't ever do any work around the house without bleeding!

2008-06-22T00:24:00.000-04:00

Colors of the Atomic Pirate Seen Over NYC!

Panic in the Streets

Time to add another installment of my experiences beginning life in a TINY apartment on New York City's Upper West Side. Yesterday the main accomplishment was receiving delivery of the full-size bed I had picked out on Friday from Sleepy's, a big chain here in NYC which has a store around the corner from me. Although delivery was promised to arrive between 9 AM and 1 PM, it didn't actually come until about 2:45 PM. I think this tardiness would have incensed a true New Yorker; wasting people's time is the #1 sin in this city. Be prompt, do what you need to do and get the heck out of everybody else's way is the order of the day. Aside from a couple small surprises, like the fact that you're supposed to tip the delivery guys for bringing things up past the 3rd floor (something the salesman at the store failed to mention) and having to refuse delivery on a $100 mattress pad (which the guy had originally attempted to sell to me for $150 and then found online for $60), things actually went quite smoothly. And at the end of the day, just before closing time, I was able to stop into the local store "@ home" and buy a couple of down pillows, a vinyl mattress cover and a cheap set of sheets just as they were closing. The glorious result was that last night I finally got to sleep on a comfortable bed. The most comfortable bed I've slept on in my life, actually!

I don't plan to stick with the cheap vinyl cover and the 300 thread count sheets. That would just be wrong, considering how nice the mattress is! And providentially, Macys is having a sale on bedding this weekend. Erin Shepard, a friend of mine back in Pasadena, happened to call me today just as I was browsing online through the various possibilities on their website and was happy to give some interior decorating advice. We took a poll among some friends at her house (people were gathering for a pool party) and the Frame style from Hotel Collection carried the day. So later tonight I plan to order the duvet and shams from Macys online as well as buy a comforter and non-sucky mattress protector on amazon.

This morning I walked down to McDonald's, hoping for some breakfast menu lovin' and also possibly a free ATM. In NYC, jaywalking is ubiqituous--the only people who wait for the walk signal are tourists. So I've gotten in the habit, like everyone else, of taking a step or two into the street and walking across quickly when there's a gap in traffic. As I was booking it over to Mickey D's, jaywalking all the way, I was given a moment's pause on a particular cross street when I noticed a parked police car with a policeman just sitting there in it, watching. Hmm--should I wait for the signal? No one is driving on this street... In this moment of doubt, a more experienced resident blew right past me, heedless of the stop signal, and I realized that the cop didn't care either. So off I went on my merry way! How funny to contrast this with Pasadena, where several of my friends at Caltech were written up for jaywalking across a tiny street--to the tune of about 150 bucks each! Although, maybe I should be glad for a town where the only thing cops can find to do is write tickets for jaywalking.

Twice today I was asked by people who must have been tourists for directions... I guess perhaps I looked like I knew what I was doing?? Anyway, as luck would have it, I knew the answer to both questions and so I felt sort of a like a legit New Yorker. Although to be fair, almost anyone who has ever been here knows where Times Square is and how to get to a subway that they just left. But still!

Other adventures today included opening a free checking account with Chase, taking a short but refreshing walk through Central Park, visiting the 5th Avenue Apple store, securing a couple pairs of Rockports at Macys (quickly becoming my favorite store!) and traveling to the south Bronx to a run-down hardware store (see picture below).Luckily, texting GOOGL told me that there was a Home Depot conveniently located in Midtown. I was able to get the supplies to "fix" my malfunctioning top window pane which won't stay up: a couple dowel rods and a saw. Boorish, I know, but I've got to do something so that I can get A/C working in there! So for now, propping the stupid thing up will have to do.

As of now I am sitting in Broadway Bubbles, doing laundry and taking some time off to relax! I think most of the essentials are in place so that I can live and work in this city.

2008-06-18T22:48:00.000-04:00

The Big Apple

My journey today began at 4:30 AM in Albuquerque, where I awoke at the apartment of my brother Brandon and his wife Michal to the sound of the Mission Impossible theme playing on my cell phone. It was time to get moving to catch the 6:15 AM flight to Houston, continuing on to La Guardia in New York City. This is about the 3rd or 4th time that I've imposed on their hospitality, and jokingly I told them that their apartment, so conveniently located to the Albuquerque airport, is the REAL Crossroads of the West!

The flights went more or less without a hitch; though there were small delays in getting off the ground, both times the pilots were able to make up time and arrive as scheduled. I even somehow managed to stuff the new taupe wool suit I bought last night at Mervyn's into my not-so-aptly-named "carry-on" bag. The first flight to Houston was on a small plane and so they gate-checked my "carry-on" bag--good thing because that bulging bag would have needed its own seat on that little aircraft. But for the Houston to New York flight, I was finally out of luck: one quick attempt made it immediately clear that there was no way my new Travelpro carry-on would fit in the overhead space. After waiting for all the passengers to board, I dropped it off at the front of the plane, feeling OK with checking it since it seemed impossible to misroute it at that point in the itinerary. I got into my window seat and settled down for the last leg of the trek.

After an uneventful flight, I felt the plane begin to descend and opened the two windows next to me. What a view! We were flying over Manhattan, from north to south, and had a spectacular view of the cityscape and Central Park. We made a big circle and came to a smooth landing at our final destination: La Guardia airport. At this point thoughts began to creep into my mind to the effect of, "Eric...what the heck are you DOING??" It began to seem ludicrous to me to be moving out to New York City. Oh well. No turning back now...

After collecting my bags, I faced the real Herculean task of my trip: taking the M60 bus to 110th Street, not far from my final destination of 108th. Looking around me at the huge 25 inch bag, "carry-on" and shoulder bag, all packed until their seams were straining, it seemed rather dubious to make the bus trip. But the $2 fare versus ~$50 for a cab was just too much of a savings for me. I'm still basically a cheap graduate student, I'm afraid. So I paid the cheap fare and got on the bus, lugging those huge bags around me. Oh, how I was hated by my fellow passengers! Oh, how I hated myself! What was I thinking?? Somehow, over the course of several stops, I managed to ensconce myself towards the back of the bus. At first I had hoped that perhaps this was a route used mostly by fellow LGA travelers. Not hardly!! The bus was soon PACKED with people, mostly traveling to Harlem, and ALL of them none to amused with a clueless white boy and his traveling circus of luggage.

Somehow I survived the shame and the glares as we made our way through Manhattan along 125th Street. Mercifully, after passing through Harlem and turning south towards Columbia University, the crowd thinned out and I even struck up a conversation with the guy across from me, who, I felt sure from his appearance, attended Columbia. Indeed he was a PhD student in EE and we had a nice chat. I even chatted with yet another amiable fellow on the bus who overheard me talking about Albuquerque and who, it turned out, grew up there and was planning to go back soon. I got off the bus feeling much better and charged off with renewed determination towards my apartment.

The next couple of hours mainly consisted of me hauling the circus of luggage up 6 flights of stairs and taking stock of my situation. I had no towel. No bed. No sheets. No food. No hangers or dresser. Not even a pillow! And...not a clue of where to get these things. And no internet. How did people survive before Google?? I sulked a bit in the apartment, feeling rather homesick for my cushy room in the Syphus house. After wandering aimlessly around the neighborhood a bit I was happy to get a text from my new roommate Josh Brown, and we met up to get dinner and get the real tour around the neighborhood.

It's really not bad at all! Bordered by Central Park on the east and Riverside Park on the west, our little corner of the Upper West Side has grocery stores, restaurants and everything you might possibly need fairly close by on Broadway. Josh was great to talk to and after a couple hours and a few slices of New York pizza my optimism was definitely on the rise.

I still don't have any of those things I listed before...but at least I know where to get them! And for now I am sleeping on the big beanbag from the living room, which zips out to a queen size fluffy mattress. How ingenious! In fact I am writing this post as I lounge on the converted bed, looking out my window (which has no blinds! Gotta fix that too...)

So. I'm here. Whew! To paraphrase the song... Keep spreadin' the news--I arrived today!

2008-01-09T01:38:00.000-05:00

One the stupidest things yet to hit the Interwebz is LOLcats. According to legend, a tradition started long ago (circa 2005) of captioning cat pictures with poorly spelled, pithy phrases to elicit a humorous response. Let me give an example:

It was apparently this picture that started the revolution. Now thousands of such photos can be found at icanhascheezburger.com, and an article has even appeared in Time magazine about LOLcats.

Not to be one to miss out on silly wave like LOLcats, I used a hilarious cat image txt'ed to me by my friend Andrea Frankel over Christmas break. Check it out!

moar funny pictures

Good eats

2007-11-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

Eating at the famous Maders restaurant! Rouladen, yum yum! Cheese soup for Frosso, and Black Forest cake to finish!

2007-11-15T20:22:00.000-05:00

Frosso and I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum tonight! Beautiful place

Dinner time!

2007-11-02T21:15:00.001-04:00

Dinner at the Caltech Olive Festival ... Done by the Ath, it's really good! Left to right: Hernan, Jenny, Tristan, Ketan, George, Andrea, Eric

Olive Mania at 'Tech

2007-11-02T16:25:00.001-04:00

I helped out today at the first annual Caltech Olive Harvest. We took in a good haul!

2007-09-19T11:15:00.001-04:00

It Do Be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Arrrrr!! And fer any of ye scurvy landlubbers who don't know how, ye'd best be watchin' this informational video! P-(

Canon in D like never before

2007-09-01T21:43:00.001-04:00

My adviser here at Caltech, Rob Phillips, pointed out this video to me... funtwo totally shreds this amazing arrangement of Canon in D by Pachabel. Incredible!! I want a DDR or Guitar Hero song made from this...

2007-08-31T15:51:00.001-04:00

Quality fan films

Ryan vs. Dorkman (or RvD for short) is an AMAZING fan film lightsaber duel!! You gotta check this out, as well as the sequel RvD2. These guys should definitely be admitted to any film school they apply to, IMHO...

2007-08-21T14:52:00.001-04:00

Fish are friends
Originally uploaded by atomicpirate

My new officemates

The administrative assistant for our group, Katie Miller, is leaving us this week--she's going to be a teacher now! She had been keeping some goldfish in a cast-off tank from a previous bootcamp and I agreed to be the new caretaker. So here they are!

We've got an angel fish, a silver dollar fish, a regular goldfish as well as a brown goldfish with bug eyes! Oh yeah and there's a little bottom-feeding fish too, when he gets scared he flips over and plays dead! How cool is that? And last but not least a snail that helps keep the tank clean.

You know I always wanted to have a pet fish as a kid... maybe it's just as well that I didn't because I probably would have killed it. But still, this is sort of a fulfillment of a childhood dream.

2007-08-15T01:06:00.000-04:00

A Great Moment in Cinematic History

Exactly one month ago a group of us YSA went to see the annual John Williams concert with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl--what a show that was! I think he got called back for no less than 4 encores, and finally he had to shake his finger at the crowd to get them to quit clapping! One of the encores they played was the "Flying" theme from E.T., which got me thinking about how much I love that soundtrack and also reminded me of the amazing bike chase at the end of the movie. YouTube, take it away!

2007-07-27T02:50:00.000-04:00

"And then... then suddenly she's not your ho no mo!"

I just about died laughing when I saw this part of the episode "A Benihana Christmas" from season 3 of The Office. I love that show. I can't wait until it's back on the air! But for now I can relive the good times with YouTube...

2007-07-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

Tweet, tweet!

I've been infected by yet another meme (just learned that term!) It's called Twitter, and everyone on the Twitter site is answering a single question: "What are you doing?"

Now before you wonder if I've lost my mind, I've actually got something in mind with this. Now that it's easy and altogether commonplace to archive emails, IMs and SMS it's got me thinking that there are several ways that I and countless others are keeping a sort of de facto daily journal. By issuing Tweets (short text updates) of what I'm up to on Twitter, I give a quick little window into what daily life is like along with a healthy dose of my own quirky personality. So not only is it good clean fun but it's yet another way that I can quickly and easily document my life!

Curious what Twitter's like? Check out my twitter feed or just look on the right sidebar of my blog!

2007-07-12T23:58:00.000-04:00

The best hybrid on the market
Hybrid cars have been all the rage lately. It's the hippest thing for any self-respecting eco-conscious person to own. And hey I'll admit that cars like the Toyota Prius, arguably the most succesful hybrid to-date, are pretty hot. With keyless entry, power everything and a sophisticated built-in computer that automatically connects to satellite radio, pairs with your Bluetooth phone and keeps you on track with GPS navigation, the Prius is every gadget geek's dream.

With all due respect though to my gas-guzzling Prius buddies, I have to say: my hybrid is better than yours!

Oh yes! You heard me right. Let's do a quick comparison. The Prius is quite a complicated car; with cutting edge technology it has to be taken to a dealer for repairs and it's likely to cost you a pretty penny. I'm happy to say that my dealer, so far, has been willing to repair my hybrid FOR FREE every time I've brought it in with any mechanical issues. But then you'll be telling me that your Prius is known to get the best gas mileage of any hybrid on the market currently. I beg to differ! What do you get in your Prius, maybe 50 mpg? Well guess what, I get INFINITE miles per gallon on my sweet hybrid. Beat that!

In case you hadn't guessed already, yes, my "hybrid" is in fact a bicycle. ;) For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a hybrid bike is one that combines some of the features of a mountain bike (comfort and suspension) with those of a road bike (larger wheels and lighter weight) to get something that makes for a nice commute. About a year ago Caltech instituted a monthly parking fee and I thought, shoot, I can save the $35/mo I would spend on driving my lazy heiny to campus, get a bike and stay in shape to boot! At this point after having spent ~$400 on the bike and a few hundred more on various accessories like a bike computer, repair stand, pumps, water bottles, etc. etc. I'm not sure how much I've really saved but I have gained a new hobby and it is a ton of fun! Besides the killer gas mileage that I get on my way to school and back I manage to get some good cardio on the 9 mile round trip (it's uphill all the way home!) and I've enjoyed going on a few rides like the Cool Breeze Century and the annual Glendora Memorial Day ride to Seal Beach.

Here's a picture of me with my hybrid on the Cool Breeze 2006 ride and all I can say is: eat your heart out, suckah Prius owner! ;)

2006-10-05T11:22:00.000-04:00

We had a lecture yesterday on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics from my adviser, Rob Phillips. It turns out that in non-equilibrium situations you can observe some really wild pattern-forming systems; check out the video below from the Swinney group at UT Austin to see what I mean!

"It's alive... IT'S ALIVE!!" :P Who'd have thought that cornstarch could be so interesting?? This particular phenomenon is called a Faraday instability; the physics of what's going on is in this article:
Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 184501 (2004)

Also yesterday was a special day... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!! :D

2006-09-23T12:58:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the 8th annual Caltech Career Conference--it's been clear to me for some time that going the "academic route" isn't for me. For those who may not know, the "academic route" goes like this: (1) Get a three year academic postdoc, working for a few more peanuts a year than you did as a grad student. (2) Think about applying for academic positions. If none are open in your field, repeat step (1), otherwise go to step... (3) Apply to a dozens of positions across the country, including many that look like Professor of (Your Field Here) at Podunk U, middle of Nowhere, USA. (4) After applications, job interviews and lots of seedy hotels you get your associate professorship at Podunk U. Now comes the fun of step (5) Applying for tenure! A few years of barely controlled panic and a dozen or so burned out grad students later, you hope and pray that commitee gives you tenure at which point you proceed to step (6) Full professorship! You've arrived. Oh wait, you still need to serve on countless bureaucratic committees, beg for money from every government agency with the slightest relationship to your field and bang out publications like they were going out of style. What FUN! ;)

So to get back to the point, yesterday's Career Conference was quite enlightening. We had people from all over the place in "Industry"--you know, that place that all the fallen academics who have "sold their souls" go, to make "money". There were lawyers, managers, entrepreneurs, quants, consultants and the only thing they had in common (in most cases) was a PhD in a totally unrelated field from Caltech. After hearing the comments of a panel and having lunch with some of these brave souls I felt a lot better about my chances of being successful outside of academia.

After all, one of these days I'm going to have to come up with something concrete that I'm going to do with my life. Inevitably when I tell people what I'm doing at Caltech the question comes up, "So what are you going to do with that?" Yeah, what AM I going to do with that? Unable to give a pithy answer, I usually say "I'm going to go live in a VAN, down by the river!" Good for a few laughs but not a great long term solution. :)

So now it's on to researching some interesting companies like Pixar, Apple, Susquehanna and IBM to name a few. Maybe soon I won't have to be echoing these sentiments of one my favorite characters, the Homestarrunner.