This is mostly a local mirror of my online diary at kuro5hin.org, although some entries are present here but not there. I try to add at least one entry a week, so check back here from time to time if you're interested in what's going on in my world. You can send me email if you want to respond privately, or surf over to kuro5hin to make public comments or vote in polls.
| 140. | Big News! | Wed Oct 29th, 2003 at 22:04:46 PST |
| Kate and I got engaged this weekend. We went out to Coyote Point Park, on the way to San Francisco, and visited the wildlife pavilion, where I knelt down, asked her to marry me, and presented her with the ring. She said yes, and I stood up and held her. | ||
| 139. | Busy School Days | Mon Oct 13th, 2003 at 22:54:00 PDT |
| School's started again, so I'm busy as usual. I seem to jump from one busy time to another, but that's the way it goes. | ||
| 138. | End of Summer | Mon Sep 22nd, 2003 at 12:14:13 AM PST |
| The summer is drawing to a close, and with fall comes the beginning of the school year. Let's see, what have I been doing for the last month... | ||
| 137. | Moving In | Sun Aug 24th, 2003 at 08:27:29 PM EST |
| It's been about a month since I last wrote. Kate and I have been busy, busy, busy that whole time with moving in at the new apartment. We're finally done, so I'm taking the time for a quick note. | ||
| 136. | Two Weekends | Mon Jul 28th, 2003 at 02:50:30 AM EST |
| Camping at Big Basin and garlic in Gilroy. | ||
| 135. | New Apartment! | Mon Jul 14th, 2003 at 03:02:12 AM EST |
| Back in April or so, Kate and I talked about whether we wanted to get an apartment together for the fall. We decided that it was too early to decide to do that then, but maybe for the year after. | ||
| 134. | First Week at VMware | Thu Jun 26th, 2003 at 02:53:46 AM EST |
| I started working at VMware on Monday, June 16th. It's been a good time so far. | ||
| 133. | Study Break | Fri Jun 13th, 2003 at 11:53:19 PM EST |
| The last few weeks have been a nice change from the routine of frantically writing and submitting one paper after another. Frantically studying for quals was a change, but not really a nice one. | ||
| 132. | Diary Catchup | Sun Jun 1st, 2003 at 03:58:22 AM EST |
| It has been 39 days since I last diarized, on April 22. This is too long. In my defense, I have been busy with important things. | ||
| 131. | Easter Weekend | Tue Apr 22nd, 2003 at 03:34:16 AM EST |
| Kate flew down to her sister's house over the weekend. I spent it trying to track down a particularly nasty bug. | ||
| 130. | New Car! | Wed Apr 9th, 2003 at 02:55:44 AM EST |
| I bought a car today. It's a brand new 2003 Pontiac Vibe. You might not have seen Vibes around yet, because it's the first model year for them. They're a kind of sedan/SUV hybrid that looks a bit like a sedan that's been stretched upward. I really like mine. | ||
| 129. | The Paper is In | Wed Mar 26th, 2003 at 01:42:10 AM EST |
| In which we submit our paper to SOSP'03, I accept a summer internship at VMware, Kate flies home for spring break, and I lose my phone and get it back. | ||
| 128. | Google, IPsec, HotOS | Sat Mar 15th, 2003 at 03:13:46 AM EST |
| In which my interview at Google goes well, I write an IPsec implementation, and lots of HotOS papers get accepted. | ||
| 127. | Departure and Arrival | Mon Mar 10th, 2003 at 02:58:52 AM EST |
| In which my family flies back to Michigan and Kate returns from Wisconsin. | ||
| 126. | Arrival and Departure | Mon Mar 3rd, 2003 at 01:36:38 AM EST |
| In which my family arrives in San Francisco and Kate flies back to Wisconsin. | ||
| 125. | FedUp | Wed Feb 19th, 2003 at 04:05:53 AM EST |
FedEx Corp. Revenue Services To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to comment on the extremely distressing treatment I have received from your billing department... |
||
| 124. | Valentine's Day Approaches | Thu Feb 13th, 2003 at 02:39:18 AM EST |
| Friday is Valentine's Day. It's also Kate's birthday. So I'd be in big trouble if I forgot... but, no worries, it's going to be great. We're going out to Lavanda, a fancy Italian restaurant and wine bar in Palo Alto. Afterward there's a couple of places in downtown that have live jazz, so we'll stop by one of those. | ||
| 123. | Everything | Wed Feb 5th, 2003 at 02:28:14 AM EST |
| My last diary entry was more than a month ago. It's been busy, busy, busy the whole time. Now it's settled down a bit, so I'll summarize what's gone on. | ||
| 122. | 2002 Wrap-Up - The Good and the Bad | Thu Jan 2nd, 2003 at 01:53:18 AM EST |
| It's the time of year for making lists. Here's mine: good and bad stuff from the last year. | ||
| 121. | Christmas in Wisconsin | Mon Dec 30th, 2002 at 12:38:20 AM EST |
| In which I spend the week of Christmas with my girlfriend's family in Wisconsin. | ||
| 120. | Two Movies and a Weekend | Mon Dec 23rd, 2002 at 01:14:52 AM EST |
| In which I see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Orgazmo and do a lot of bike maintenance. | ||
| 119. | A Tale of Two Trips | Tue Dec 17th, 2002 at 02:01:26 AM EST |
| In which I go to Boston and Kate goes to Reedsburg. | ||
| 118. | Pumpkin Pies and More | Sat Nov 30th, 2002 at 01:46:09 AM EST |
| A brief account of the last week. | ||
| 117. | Happy News | Wed Nov 20th, 2002 at 02:05:03 AM EST |
| I know it's been a long time since I've written anything, but I finally have some free time. And there are definitely some things to write. | ||
| 116. | Cycle Shorts, Full Moon | Tue Oct 22nd, 2002 at 04:50:37 AM EST |
| Friday night, I went out and bought cycling clothing. Tonight, I went to Full Moon on the Quad. | ||
| 115. | Speed Dating | Fri Oct 18th, 2002 at 03:18:34 AM EST |
| My apartment complex had a "compatibility party" and "speed dating" event tonight. | ||
| 114. | Paper Submitted | Fri Oct 11th, 2002 at 23:18:01 PDT |
| The camera-ready version of my research group's paper for OSDI 2002, the USENIX Operating Systems Design and Implementation conference, was submitted yesterday about noon. | ||
| 113. | Happy Birthday to Me | Tue Oct 1st, 2002 at 05:19:39 PM EST |
| I'm 24 today. | ||
| 112. | New Bike! | Fri Sep 27th, 2002 at 01:50:24 AM EST |
| Trek
2300 racing bike: $1,829.99 Look PP 337 clipless pedals: $89.99 Sidi Genius 4 cycling shoes: $170.99 Shimano Flight Deck bike computer, installed: $110.98 Miscellaneous tools and accessories: $100.02 Racing up hills like they're not there: priceless |
||
| 111. | Contacts, Bike, Roommates | Sun Sep 22nd, 2002 at 02:28:50 AM EST |
| In which I test-drive a road bike and get contact lenses and a pair of new roommates. | ||
| 110. | Back to Michigan | Mon Sep 9th, 2002 at 12:14:15 AM EST |
| In which I return from California for a visit and attend the Michigan Renaissance Festival (photos) with my friend Michelle F. | ||
| 109. | Mega-Update | Fri Aug 30th, 2002 at 02:05:49 AM EST |
| It's been far too long since I've written a proper diary entry, so here goes. | ||
| 108. | Bogus Terminology | Wed Aug 28th, 2002 at 01:03:47 AM EST |
| Am I the only one who is bothered by terms like "copyright industry" and "content industry"? It seems that these terms are coming into common use in Internet discussion forums and elsewhere. It seems that they refer primarily to RIAA and MPAA member companies. | ||
| 107. | Usenix Security '02 | Sun Aug 11th, 2002 at 01:45:06 AM EST |
| On Wednesday and Thursday I attended Usenix Security '02 in San Francisco. Besides being a good conference, it was so close to home that I had no excuse not to attend. | ||
| 106. | T30, Transactions | Wed Aug 7th, 2002 at 03:07:01 AM EST |
| In this episode, my transaction manager is smarter than I am, and I get most of my ThinkPad T30 working. | ||
| 105. | BIkes! Computers! | Sat Aug 3rd, 2002 at 06:02:56 PM EST |
| Due to bike problems, the big ride for today got postponed. I'm thinking about buying a road bike. I got a new laptop and soon will have a new desktop, too. And my research group's paper got accepted for OSDI 2002. | ||
| 104. | Back to Low-Level Hacking | Mon Jul 29th, 2002 at 12:20:55 AM EST |
| It's been a long time since I've done much programming at the machine level. These days, most of the code I write is in C or Java and I have little need for low-level control over hardware. Even the Linux drivers I've written contain no assembly code. But this weekend I got a little taste of low-level hacking again. I'd forgotten how much fun it could be. | ||
| 103. | The Big Bike Trip That Wasn't Supposed to Be | Wed Jul 24th, 2002 at 02:06:02 AM EST |
| Joel and I went out biking today around 4:30. We'd planned to head out to Edgewood Park, which is a good medium distance bike-ride away, with a few small hills but nothing too bad. It was supposed to be a good trip for a day like today when I'm feeling pretty tired and weak anyhow. | ||
| 102. | Bike Computer | Sat Jul 13th, 2002 at 09:07:03 PM EST |
| I bought a bike computer. It's an Avocet 45tt. It was about $50. | ||
| 101. | July 4 | Sat Jul 6th, 2002 at 05:12:02 PM EST |
| Yesterday was July 4. Holidays suck, as usual. | ||
| 100. | Death to Asshole Drivers! | Sun Jun 30th, 2002 at 04:21:21 AM EST |
| In which I relate the fantastic story of an early evening bike ride turned ugly... | ||
| 99. | Life Update | Fri Jun 28th, 2002 at 01:39:10 AM EST |
| It's been a while since my last diary entry. Here's a bunch of random stuff. | ||
| 98. | Night on the Town | Sat Jun 22nd, 2002 at 02:57:17 AM EST |
| I prepared by swapping my geeky t-shirt for something nicer and dropped my bike lights unobtrusively into one of the voluminous pockets of my jacket. Then I rode into Palo Alto for a night on the town. | ||
| 97. | Usenix Technical '02 | Sun Jun 16th, 2002 at 11:44:30 PM EST |
| I spent Thursday through Saturday at Usenix Technical '02 in Monterey along with Costa, Ramesh, and Tal from my research group at Stanford. | ||
| 96. | Skateboard Buying in S.F. | Sun Jun 9th, 2002 at 04:12:06 AM EST |
| Went to San Francisco and bought a skateboard, then started to learn how to ride it. | ||
| 95. | Flicks: Am�lie | Mon Jun 3rd, 2002 at 04:03:10 AM EST |
| Before the movie this week, Flicks featured a French kissing
contest. The entrants were three male-female couples and one
female-female couple. Guess who won? |
||
| 94. | "Name Change"? | Sun Jun 2nd, 2002 at 03:09:41 AM EST |
| A few weeks back, I applied online for a particular credit card that offers a good cash-back deal. I got a bizarre letter regarding it today. I wish I had some idea what they were thinking. Details below. | ||
| 93. | Ooh! Ah! Oh! Argh! | Fri May 31st, 2002 at 01:46:46 AM EST |
| Last year the MSU fencing
team and the Knights of Iron stage combat team headed off to Las
Vegas for four days of pure debauchery. This year we went back for
another four days, Saturday to Tuesday. Poll: favorite Las Vegas attraction |
||
| 92. | Paper Deadlines and a Movie | Mon May 20th, 2002 at 02:27:00 PM EST |
| Two paper deadlines this last weekend, and I went to see Orange County at FLiCKS. | ||
| 91. | My First Earthquake | Wed May 15th, 2002 at 01:30:22 AM EST |
| There was an earthquake last night here in the Bay Area centered around Gilroy, 5.2 on the Richter scale. I was sitting here at the computer in my apartment at the time (where else?). The floor shook noticeably, but not violently, for maybe 10 seconds. | ||
| 90. | Domain Names and Moving Violations | Sat Apr 27th, 2002 at 03:38:37 AM EST |
| I finally did it: I bought some domain names. I am now the proud owner of benpfaff.org and adtinfo.org. Both of them are currently just set up to redirect web and mail traffic to my "real" site, but I'll probably do more with them later. | ||
| 89. | Homework from Hell, Beef Burgundy | Tue Apr 16th, 2002 at 01:17:16 AM EST |
| In which I vanquish the evil and mighty Algorithms Homework and cook a tasty meal. | ||
| 88. | Suckered? (Part 2) | Thu Apr 11th, 2002 at 01:15:09 AM EST |
| Yesterday I wrote about a guy I talked to in the Stanford Coffee House who claimed to be an out-of-work writer. I ended up giving him a little money and wondering if I was suckered. Well, there's more evidence in. | ||
| 87. | Suckered? | Wed Apr 10th, 2002 at 01:28:33 AM EST |
| So I was sitting in the Stanford Coffee House tonight, as I do at least two or three times a week. I was reading Lessig's The Future of Ideas and watching people. A few minutes after 9 pm I looked up from my book and this middle-aged guy started talking to me. | ||
| 86. | Spring Break | Mon Apr 1st, 2002 at 02:17:32 AM EST |
| This last week was spring break here. Stanford is on the quarter system, meaning that spring break came between quarters, so there was nothing that I really needed to do. The weather was beautiful, so I did a lot of biking. I also went out a bought a bunch of books and did some reading. And besides that I did some programming and sitting in coffee shops too. | ||
| 85. | Computer Forum and Don Knuth | Thu Mar 21st, 2002 at 01:19:42 AM EST |
| Today was the first day of the 2002 meeting of the Stanford Computer Forum. This is a group of tech companies with Silicon Valley presence that recruit students and sponsor research at Stanford. At the annual meeting, scientists from all the Forum companies come to Stanford to interact with Stanford students and researchers and each other. | ||
| 84. | Charles R. Schmitter, 1907-2002 | Wed Mar 20th, 2002 at 01:00:35 AM EST |
| Maestro Charlie Schmitter was fencing coach at Michigan State
University for 45 years. He was the first American-born fencing
master, the first fencing master to coach at an American university,
Professor Emeritus at MSU, and owner of a collection of rare books on
fencing, now donated to the MSU Library. He trained my first fencing
coach, Fred Freiheit, himself a great fencer and coach in his own
right, and my second fencing coach, Dale Walter. He died in his sleep at 1:45 pm on Saturday. |
||
| 83. | End of Quarter Craziness | Fri Mar 15th, 2002 at 11:28:37 PM EST |
| This was the final week in the winter academic quarter here at Stanford. I'm not taking any classes, but it's still been pretty crazy. | ||
| 82. | Kevin Smith Talks | Fri Mar 8th, 2002 at 01:31:45 PM EST |
| Kevin Smith, aka Silent Bob and writer and director of Clerks,
Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma,
and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, spoke last night here
on Stanford campus. It was a packed house in Kresge Auditorium with
seating for about 600. Details and highlights follow. |
||
| 81. | Collective Irresponsibility | Thu Mar 7th, 2002 at 02:16:15 AM EST |
| I went into the Stanford Medical Center billing office today and
presented my case. "Let's consider this scenario. I go in for a
medical appointment. Four weeks later, I receive an overdue notice.
The problem is that I never received a bill. This has now happened
three times." Customer representative "Freda" denied this, of course: "A bill was sent on February 15." |
||
| 80. | The Last Few Days | Sun Mar 3rd, 2002 at 02:25:41 PM EST |
| In which I attend a self-defense seminar, get an email from John Gilmore, ride straight up a mountain, and clean my bike. | ||
| 79. | Casino Night and Winter Ball | Sun Feb 24th, 2002 at 02:16:47 AM EST |
| Friday night I was a dealer at my apartment complex's "Casino Night". Tonight I briefly attended the grad student "Winter Ball". Hey, free beer. | ||
| 78. | On the QWERTY Keyboard Layout | Sat Feb 16th, 2002 at 01:03:39 AM EST |
| Last night I amused myself for a few minutes by posting in a thread on comp.lang.c that had drifted over to the motives behind the design of the near-ubiquitous QWERTY keyboard layout. I managed to relate the design choices to those in a multithreaded program. The article amused me enough that I enclose it verbatim below. If you're not a computer geek, don't bother continuing, because it won't make any sense. | ||
| 77. | Books | Sun Feb 10th, 2002 at 02:08:26 PM EST |
| About the books I've been reading. | ||
| 76. | Heckuva Day | Mon Feb 4th, 2002 at 03:34:14 AM EST |
| It's been a heckuva day. Biking and food. | ||
| 75. | February | Fri Feb 1st, 2002 at 12:12:29 PM EST |
| The first day in February has arrived. I don't like February. | ||
| 74. | An Experiment | Sun Jan 27th, 2002 at 10:20:47 PM EST |
| Purpose: to determine the level of professionalism of Stanford University bike thieves. | ||
| 73. | Sometimes, Stuff Just Works | Thu Jan 24th, 2002 at 10:34:55 PM EST |
| I've been working on this software to boot up into a specialized
GNU/Linux-based system direct from a CD-ROM. I'd figured I'd have to
test it using a network or a virtual machine, because I didn't have a
convenient CD writer. Then one of the other grad students working on another aspect of the project offered to loan me a CD-RW drive. One based on FireWire. My laptop does not have FireWire. But, he had a PCMCIA FireWire card, too... |
||
| 72. | It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood | Sun Jan 20th, 2002 at 07:50:37 PM EST |
| The weather is lovely today, here in Palo Alto, Calif. I took advantage of it to bike out to Menlo Park and back, and do some shopping along the way. It was so nice that halfway there I took off my jacket and put it in my backpack. Not needed. | ||
| 71. | A Good Day | Tue Jan 15th, 2002 at 02:04:39 AM EST |
| A couple of good things happened today. It's looking up. | ||
| 70. | GNU | Fri Jan 11th, 2002 at 02:46:13 PM EST |
| I've taken to hanging out in the campus coffee-house lately, in hopes of meeting people. It doesn't work, but it's still a pretty nice atmosphere, so I go anyway. | ||
| 69. | 2001 Wrap-Up - The Good and the Bad | Thu Jan 3rd, 2002 at 03:45:57 AM EST |
| A list of good and bad stuff from the last year, roughly in chronological order. | ||
| 68. | Feeling Better Now | Tue Jan 1st, 2002 at 10:41:37 PM EST |
| A whole jumble of random thoughts in here this time, with little relation to the title. | ||
| 67. | Christmas Donations | Wed Dec 26th, 2001 at 04:48:55 PM EST |
| Today I mailed $100 checks to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Software Foundation, and MSU Fencing Club. Maybe you
should do the same thing (well, possibly not to the fencing club). Anyway, I feel a little better about myself now. |
||
| 66. | Christmas in Las Vegas | Tue Dec 25th, 2001 at 09:11:38 PM EST |
| I spent the last five days, from Dec. 20 until Dec. 24, in Las Vegas with my family. It was a pretty good trip most of the time. Writing good narrative descriptions of trips takes a long time, and I don't feel like it right now, so I'm just going to list the notable places we went and things we did each day. | ||
| 65. | Another Term Break | Sun Dec 16th, 2001 at 03:16:22 AM EST |
| The time between school terms should be more fun than other times, because there isn't any school work to do. It's too bad that that isn't the way it works out. | ||
| 64. | Apples | Thu Dec 6th, 2001 at 21:16:29 PST |
| I went to buy groceries today. I wanted some apples, so I went to the produce department. There were a few different varieties in the display--green, light red, dark red, golden--so I looked at them for a few seconds to figure out what kind I wanted. | ||
| 63. | 2½ Months at Stanford | Tue Dec 4th, 2001 at 23:07:10 PST |
| I've been at Stanford for about two and a half months. Now that I've been here for a while, I think I have a better perspective on my choice of schools. | ||
| 62. | Today's Computer Science Research Topic | Tue Nov 20th, 2001 at 08:24:32 PM EST |
| A Study of Advanced Human-Computer Interaction with 3D Responsive Environments in an End-User Context. | ||
| 61. | Party Time | Mon Nov 19th, 2001 at 04:32:10 AM EST |
| The Stanford C.S. department gives us first-year Ph.D. students $300 per quarter for social events. We decided to use it to throw a big party in celebration of the end of comprehensive exams. The party was tonight in Andrea's apartment, the one just above mine. | ||
| 60. | Last Day of Comps | Sat Nov 10th, 2001 at 04:02:19 AM EST |
| Today was the last day of the comprehensive exams for us computer science Ph.D. students today. To celebrate, a group of about a dozen of us went out. First we went to a pizza restaurant in San Jose. I don't know why we drove 20 minutes to San Jose to eat pizza. After all, Palo Alto is a college town with probably a dozen pizza restaurants, but anyway that's what we did. After that we went to a bar and drank for a few hours. | ||
| 59. | Thinking about my own 'blog | Fri Nov 9th, 2001 at 01:16:59 AM EST |
| Today I've been idly considering the possibility of writing my own weblog. This is probably the #1 software cliché today, like writing a widget set or window manager was a few years ago. Still, it's enticing. | ||
| 58. | Another Bizarre Coincidence | Sun Nov 4th, 2001 at 09:56:28 PM EST |
| As if the Wil Wheaton incident of last week wasn't enough, tonight I discovered another bizarre coincidence in my life. | ||
| 57. | Four Down, Four to Go | Fri Nov 2nd, 2001 at 12:29:36 AM EST |
| I took two of the comprehensive exams yesterday, two today, and I will take four more next week. I think I passed three out of the four so far. Not bad! Time to relax for a day or so, then back to studying. | ||
| 56. | There's a picture of me on Wil Wheaton's webpage | Tue Oct 30th, 2001 at 02:20:43 PM EST |
Go to wilwheaton.net and scroll down to where it says I AM 33% GEEK. Right below that, there is a picture of me, taken from my webpage. What the fsck?! |
||
| 55. | Report on "Future of Music" Presentation at Stanford Law School | Fri Oct 26th, 2001 at 02:27:35 AM EST |
| Tonight I attended a presentation and panel discussion at Stanford Law School sponsored by the Future of Music Coalition (FMC). The panel discussion had a couple of big names: Prof. Lawrence Lessig of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society and John Perry Barlow of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The result managed to be inspiring and discouraging at the same time. | ||
| 54. | Flicks 2: Legally Blonde | Mon Oct 22nd, 2001 at 04:01:42 AM EST |
| Went to see Legally Blonde at "Flicks" tonight. (See my last diary on the subject if you don't know what that is.) It was better than I expected. | ||
| 53. | More Griping | Sun Oct 14th, 2001 at 07:56:54 PM EST |
| Someone should alert the proper authorities to the existence of a cartel controlling merchandise in the Palo Alto area... | ||
| 52. | Bikes and Bike Shops | Sat Oct 13th, 2001 at 05:56:38 PM EST |
| I am pissed at bikes and bike shops right now. | ||
| 51. | Flicks and Moulin Rouge | Mon Oct 8th, 2001 at 8:30:48 PM PST |
| I went to see Moulin Rouge at the on-campus Stanford student film ``Flicks'' last night. It turned out to be more than I'd bargained for. | ||
| 50. | CS300 and Comps | Sun Oct 7th, 2001 at 9:10:48 AM PST |
| Earlier I talked about the mechanics of getting settled here at Stanford. In this entry I talk about the academic bits so far. | ||
| 49. | Ironies | Tues Oct 2nd, 2001 at 10:00:25 PM EST |
| It is ironic how I'm in a leading computer science Ph.D. program, but some of the professors can't get their computers to work properly with an overhead projector. | ||
| 48. | Stanford So Far | Fri Sep 28th, 2001 at 12:53:12 PM PST |
| I arrived at Stanford just over a week ago and I'm starting to get settled in now. You can take a look at photos of my apartment and the campus. | ||
| 47. | In-Flight Journal (written Thurs 20 Sept) | Tue Sep 25th, 2001 at 11:59:14 AM EST |
| I'm writing this from the passenger cabin of Northwest Flight 345 bound from Detroit, Mich. to San Francisco, Calif., more for general novelty value than anything else. The plane is a 757 with 42 rows of seats and six seats to a row here in cattle class, but of this total of approximately 250 seats I bet not more than 75 are occupied. I have this entire row to myself and the three rows ahead of me are entirely unoccupied. | ||
| 46. | Last Days in Michigan (written Weds 19 Sept) | Tue Sep 25th, 2001 at 11:56:18 AM EST |
| My last few days in Michigan, before I move to California, have been good ones. I've gone with friends to new places and old ones, run into people unexpectedly, packed my last few things, said my goodbyes. (There's nothing especially interesting here, be warned.) | ||
| 45. | RenFest V: Last Huzzah | Thu Sep 20th, 2001 at 12:01:25 AM EST |
| This weekend was the fifth of seven total for the Michigan Renaissance Festival, but the last one for me, because I'm leaving for California tomorrow. This weekend I took pictures with my digital camera! See also the entries for weekends 1, 2, 3, and 4. | ||
| 44. | Letter to Congress | Mon Sep 17th, 2001 at 17:29:37 EDT |
| I sent a letter to my Congressional representation today. I encourage any U.S. citizens or residents who might be reading this to do the same. The content of the letter is enclosed below. | ||
| 43. | Moving | Thu Sep 13th, 2001 at 10:11:14 PM EST |
| This week I've been working on getting my stuff ready to move out to California. | ||
| 42. | RenFest IV: Disappointing, with Happy Hints for the Future | Tue Sep 11th, 2001 at 06:29:45 PM EST |
| This weekend at RenFest kinda sucked: rain, hot & humid weather, no Jeremy, not much of Azalea, no pictures, canceled demos. But it sounds like next weekend should be better. Here's hoping! Plus a brief tirade on listening skills. | ||
| 41. | The penultimately bizarre event of the summer | Tue Sep 11th, 2001 at 09:50:51 AM EST |
| The most bizarre event of the summer is one that I am not willing to discuss in public, or indeed with any but my closest friends. So you'll have to settle for this one. | ||
| 40. | High school classmate sighting | Thu Sep 6th, 2001 at 10:39:50 PM EST |
| I was reading one of the lead articles on the front page of the Lansing State Journal (the Lansing, Mich. newspaper) this morning and noticed a mention of one of my high school classmates. Not a nice one, though. | ||
| 39. | Publicity for bunny fencing! | Wed Sep 5th, 2001 at 05:42:13 PM EST |
| The State News, Michigan State University's student newspaper, published an article today on bunny fencing at the Michigan Renaissance Festival. I'm both pictured and quoted. | ||
| 38. | RenFest III: Labor Day Weekend Strikes Back | Tue Sep 4th, 2001 at 04:12:32 PM EST |
| In this installement: dust, dirt, smoke, heat, cold, sunburn, sore muscles and feet, chapped lips, car accidents, broken sabres, lack of sleep; cats, tails, tight bodices, bonfires, camaraderie, excitement, fencing lessons, improv, honey sticks, hugs, finger-lickin' goodness; and more! See also weekend 1 and weekend 2. | ||
| 37. | Quote of the Month | Thu Aug 30th, 2001 at 01:42:28 AM EST |
| ``You know, before I joined the fencing team, I never thought of fencers as heavy drinkers.'' | ||
| 36. | Today's Seinfeld Moment | Thu Aug 30th, 2001 at 12:44:56 AM EST |
| Remember how the plot of Seinfeld always revolved around petty, nonsensical issues? I had a Seinfeld kind of moment today. | ||
| 35. | RenFest II: Return of RenFest | Mon Aug 27th, 2001 at 11:41:28 AM EST |
| Bodices, sword wounds, improv, mistaken identities, lost scabbards, and more, all in the second weekend's installment of my Michigan Renaissance Festival journal. See also the first weekend's entry. | ||
| 34. | RenFest is every bit as much fun as I remember | Mon Aug 20th, 2001 at 02:08:13 PM EST |
| The Michigan Renaissance Festival opened on Saturday for the first of 7 weekends in its 2001 run. This year, as last year, I'm participating. | ||
| 33. | Something funny is going on | Thu Aug 16th, 2001 at 01:03:44 PM EST |
| I spent yesterday and part of today writing
some intricate code. Today, I compiled it
and ran the unit test... Poll: Explanation. |
||
| 32. | Life is really dragging right now | Wed Aug 15th, 2001 at 10:46:10 PM EST |
| It seems like all the exciting things are either
in the past or the future right now. Poll: Sandwiches. |
||
| 31. | Mirrored my diary; paper accepted | Mon Aug 13th, 2001 at 12:14:29 AM EST |
| I spent part of the afternoon building a mirror
of my k5 diary on my webpage.
A paper I co-authored has been accepted for a journal. |
||
| 30. | Too tired | Sat Aug 11th, 2001 at 01:33:31 PM EST |
| A couple of days ago there was an approaching thunderstorm as I was about to go to bed. | ||
| 29. | Visit to Lake Michigan with Sarah | Thu Aug 9th, 2001 at 01:48:36 AM EST |
| In which Sarah and I travel to the coast of Lake Michigan, camp, swim, and visit lighthouses. | ||
| 28. | Shipping lots of books | Fri Aug 3rd, 2001 at 01:30:17 PM EST |
| I've got to ship lots and lots of books from Michigan to California. Any suggestions? | ||
| 27. | Traffic accidents are always scary | Thu Jul 26th, 2001 at 04:39:48 PM EST |
| even when I'm not directly involved. | ||
| 26. | A.I. | Mon Jul 23rd, 2001 at 05:01:52 PM EST |
| Went to see A.I. last night. | ||
| 25. | I really need to create an anonymous account | Sun Jul 22nd, 2001 at 12:33:19 PM EST |
| The last couple of weeks a bunch of things
(mostly good) have happened that I've wanted to
write about in my k5 diary, but people I know
read it.
Poll: Your k5 account(s) |
||
| 24. | California, Fencing, and Ren Fest | Sat Jul 14th, 2001 at 10:37:45 PM EST |
| It's been a good week. I bought my plane ticket to California, found out about fencing at Ren Fest, refereed at a fencing tournament, bought some textbooks, met some new people, went to a party, and more. | ||
| 23. | Vacation by Lake Huron | Mon Jul 9th, 2001 at 02:47:18 PM EST |
| I've been away since last Tuesday on Lake Huron. | ||
| 22. | Vacation | Tue Jul 3rd, 2001 at 10:35:01 AM EST |
| In about an hour I'm leaving for Lake Huron, where I'll go jet-skiing and boating at my friend's grandparents' house. Should be fun. | ||
| 21. | Finally got some software out the door | Mon Jun 25th, 2001 at 02:43:27 PM EST |
| I've been writing this software for INTEnD, an interdisciplinary group of researchers at MSU, since 1998. I finally got them to agree to release it, under GNU GPL, this summer. And here it is: TeamSCOPE! | ||
| 20. | More ignorance about C | Fri Jun 22nd, 2001 at 09:00:59 PM EST |
| So there's another article about C here on k5, and it shows the usual level of ignorance. | ||
| 19. | Argh! | Thu Jun 21st, 2001 at 05:36:25 PM EST |
| Our new server takes PC133 SDRAM. Foolishly, I assumed that any PC133 SDRAM would work. | ||
| 18. | Dok Sing | Tue Jun 19th, 2001 at 10:27:09 PM EST |
| Rediscovering a beloved restaurant is like a family reunion--the nice kind. | ||
| 17. | New server | Fri Jun 15th, 2001 at 05:43:19 PM EST |
| We finally got a new server for cscw.msu.edu. It's been running on a P2/266 for three years now, a crappy generic former desktop box. But on Wednesday our new box arrived, and it's a real server (you can tell because the case is black instead of beige). | ||
| 16. | U-2 | Sat Jun 2nd, 2001 at 03:25:27 PM EST |
| I went to the U-2 concert in the Palace in Detroit on Wednesday night. | ||
| 15. | A good day | Sun May 27th, 2001 at 10:50:09 PM EST |
| Finally got some interesting work done today.
Summer and Stanford update. What kind of car/truck should I buy? |
||
| 14. | Guilt | Fri May 25th, 2001 at 09:36:42 AM EST |
| Do you other people out there feel guilty about things that you really have no reason to? | ||
| 13. | Wrote driver for docking station speakers | Mon May 14th, 2001 at 01:23:51 PM EST |
| I bought a docking station for my laptop, and Linux didn't support everything
on the dock. In particular the speakers on the docking station weren't
supported. So I wrote up some patches to add support for them, and for
the little volume-control and mute buttons on the side of the dock.
Poll. |
||
| 12. | Prom | Mon May 7th, 2001 at 03:36:36 PM EST |
| On Friday, I graduated from Michigan State University. On Saturday, I went to my high school's prom. | ||
| 11. | Done with college! | Wed May 2nd, 2001 at 06:12:32 PM EST |
| I took my last final exam today at 3:00 pm. | ||
| 10. | Released a new library - now what? | Fri Apr 27th, 2001 at 12:50:17 PM EST |
| I released a new library today. You can download it from my homepage.
But the big question is: what should I do with it? |
||
| 9. | Alcoholic close calls | Mon Apr 23rd, 2001 at 02:31:10 PM EST |
| In which we are lucky that no one dies and no one ends up in jail. | ||
| 8. | Suffering withdrawal... | Tue Apr 17th, 2001 at 02:40:48 PM EST |
| ...from USENET. The MSU news server has been down for over a day now. | ||
| 7. | damned taxes | Sun Apr 15th, 2001 at 02:37:39 AM EST |
| I did my taxes tonight. | ||
| 6. | Go-karting and laptops | Sat Apr 7th, 2001 at 10:41:29 PM EST |
| I went go-karting yesterday and bought a laptop today. | ||
| 5. | Sometimes troubleshooting is easy | Wed Apr 4th, 2001 at 11:06:29 PM EST |
| This morning I was awakened by the sound of my phone ringing. | ||
| 4. | I'm going to the Netherlands! | Tue Apr 3rd, 2001 at 09:29:42 PM EST |
| I'm going to the Netherlands this summer, and I'm getting paid for it. | ||
| 3. | Grad school decision...? | Wed Mar 21st, 2001 at 01:23:15 PM EST |
| I think I've decided that I want to go to Stanford to get my PhD in computer science. I also got accepted at University of Michigan (and turned down by Berkeley) as detailed in an earlier diary entry. | ||
| 2. | Computer science at U-M? | Sat Mar 10th, 2001 at 11:03:40 PM EST |
| I'm currently trying to figure out where I'm going to go to grad school, in computer science. I applied to the University of Michigan, Stanford, and University of California-Berkeley. Today, I was at U-M to visit. | ||
| 1. | Fencing Frustrations | Mon Jan 22nd, 2001 at 01:02:32 AM EST |
| So I am, for better or for worse, the men's captain of the MSU fencing team (that's right, Olympic-style sword fighting). Lately, it seems like it's mostly for the worse. | ||