I'm visiting Colorado now. Don't have time to make a real post. I do have plenty to say though, so when I have a chance (probably not till I'm back in Berkeley on Sunday) I will post stuff.
It is my unfortunate duty to report that I have not been given the opportunity to decline to attend either Harvard University or the California Institute of Technology. This is truly sad, because I would have taken great pleasure in telling Harvard no. That's life. I'm still waiting to hear from University of Washington and UC Santa Cruz.
I guess I ought to mention the other interesting thing about our softball game last night. For every intramural softball game, both teams are awarded a sportsmanship rating based on how they behaved during the game, in the eyes of the umpire. In our game last night, we received an F, the worst possible rating. I should note that we have never before received a rating below A, the highest possible rating. What happened was this: for the first three innings, the umpire was calling a completely different strike zone than we were used to, with pitches that came in at about chin height being called strikes. So we were grumbling about that for the first part of the game. However, that's not the kind of thing that gets you an F on sportsmanship. The big event that really ticked us off happened in the bottom of the third or fourth inning, when we were up with the bases loaded and one out. The previous batter had hit a foul ball out of play, and IM sports has this rule where the batting team must retrieve balls out of play, and if a batter hits a ball out of play while another ball is out of play, the batter is automatically out. So we were desperately trying to get the first ball back on the field before the next batter came up. And in fact, we were able to get the ball back on the field before the next pitch, but we could not get the attention of the umpire. Sure enough, the batter hit the ball out of play (fair, but out of play). Normally, it would have been a double to drive in two runs, but the umpire ruled that since she did not have posession of the previous ball, the ball that was just hit out of play was an automatic out.
This really got us upset, both because the umpire seemed to have no idea what the rule was, and because the rule she seemingly made up was a disasterous initerpretation of the rulebook. One of our players, who is generally a fiery player, got in her face and didn't help matters too much. I think it was at that point that the umpire shouted, "Your sportsmanship rating just went down!" So we pulled that teammate out of there and our more level-headed captain stepped in to argue our case. Eventually it became clear that the umpire was not going to change her ruling, so we officially protested the call, which again I think didn't help matters any. After the game, we talked with the umpires some more. I don't think it's going to help us at all, but maybe they will change the ruling in the future. The upshot of all this is that we're going to have to be angels the rest of the season if we want to have a chance at the playoffs, where only teams with a B average in sportsmanship rating are eligible.
We (the astronomy department) actually won our first game of the season in intramural softball. Pretty incredible, when you figure that we've won a total of two our three games over the past two seasons. It was an exciting finish, with the winning run scoring on a clean single to left in the bottom of the last inning. I was the third base coach, and I have to admit I had no idea we were that close. After being down 8-1 going to the bottom of the third, I thought we were dead for sure and stopped keeping track of the score. So, when someone from our dugout yelled during that last at-bat of the game "Hey, if we get a hit here we win!", I just laughed to myself and thought what a funny joke it was. And then the guy got a hit and we won, 9-8. Pow.
The big news today is that Tiffany and I visited Alcatraz. We took an audio tour of the island, walking around the penitentiary listening to a recording describing the various features of the prison, as well as comments about the place from ex-convicts and ex-officers. All in all it was a good trip.
Yesterday, I spent four hours making a pesto pizza. Ok, an hour of that was playing spades with Mr. Pendleton. Hey, the bread was rising, ok? Seriously though, I made the pizza dough from scratch, as they say, as well as the pesto sauce (aren't food processors great). With a hefty amount of feta cheese, yellow peppers, and tomatoes (regular and sun-dried) it turned out really well. I was extremely pleased with it.
Finally, tomorrow is the first game of this semester's intramural softball team. Our captain has chosen our team name to be Stanford Cardinal. I'm not sure why he did this, except perhaps to help other teams feel better about beating the snot out of us week after week. He also asked us to wear "red" to the games. Right. I'd sooner sell my soul to the devil, thanks.
At Matt Pendleton's insistence, I have decided to post a nice story from my sophomore year in college, also my first year living in the co-op system. This story focuses on one of my favorite nights from that sophomore year. It occurred at the end of the fall semester, when Stebbin's had its special dinner. Special dinner is the last social event for the house, and consists of lots of money being spent on good food and alcohol. I should emphasize the alcohol part. For this particular special dinner, we had an open bar along with appetizers before the dinner actually started. I recall having a good time eating things like chocolate covered strawberries with actual decent mixed drinks. However, I did have a lot to drink. So much in fact, that by dinner time (around 8 or 9pm) I was quite intoxicated. Fortunately for me, the drinking didn't end when dinner started. Countless bottles of champagne and wine were being opened left and right, and naturally I had my fill. One of the last clear memories of that night I have came directly after I poured myself an especially large glass of wine. I decided that that was too much wine to drink, so I poured half the wine into another cup and drank them separately. This technique, in my mind, reduced the total amount of alcohol I needed to consume. I think I also wondered why more people didn't try this method to reduce their alcoholic intake.
Yeah, so everything after that was pretty much a blur. That also may or may not be the night I went to sleep with two pairs of underwear on, one inside and one outside my shorts. Utter class.
Maybe you've heard of this all-star musician. Well, Tiffany and I had the utter pleasure of watching him perfom live at Haas Pavillion (the big arena on campus) in between sets of a volleyball match. We went to see the volleyball match, but I was shocked at the number of people actually showing up to see him perform the Ricky Martin song "She Bang." Being someone who enjoys watching athletes compete in addition to someone who detests people who show up at an athletic event solely for the purpose of the halftime show, the whole thing brought about a great urge within me to vomit. The worst part was that after he did his gig, these idiot label executives came out to give him a $25k check to make an album for them.
In other fascinating news, Trent continues to leave a wake of destruction wherever he takes is monster SUV. Way to be, Trent.
Finally, I lost $12 in poker tonight ($10 buy-in). I kept getting cards that were just bad enough to fold.
I still don't really have anything to say. It's strange. Usually I can come up with something mundane. However, I seem to have no interest currently. Maybe tomorrow I'll write down a story from my sophomore year. Yes, perhaps a recount of my first ever Stebbins special dinner...
Apparently an anti-smoking foundation in Virginia has come up with an effective advertising technique to teach kids ages 10-17 that smoking is disgusting. The key player in these ads is a superhero known as "Buttman", who hacks, coughs, and spits his way around town while being too lazy and tired to stop evil-doers. The same foundation has set up a website with some of these ads available to watch. The ones with Buttman in them are the most funny. Check them out at this link.
That about sums up my current physical state. I have a sore throat that makes every swallow painful which in turn has lead to a persistent headache that probably won't go away until the sore throat does. Hopefully, I'll feel better tomorrow.
Also, I spent the weekend snowboarding at Heavenly in Lake Tahoe. It was a good trip (although going non-stop for two full days probably made it easier for me to get sick) and I hope to have pictures from the trip up in a few days.
There are a fair number of people out there who want to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes. There are also a fair number of wackos who want to completely legalize it, but I think we're so far away from that happening there isn't any point in discussing it.
However, for medical marijuana, it sure seems that the potential for harm is low and the potential for benefit is substantial. So I guess I was just wondering if anyone had any other ideas on this issue, and perhaps some sort of evidence to back it up. Hopefully we can avoid a Bill O'Reilly-esque form of defense such as "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"
I've added a couple of picture galleries. One is of Tucker at five months of age, taken about a week ago, and the other is of the Cal ice hockey team beating up on the undermanned and underskilled Stanford team. I have to give the Stanford players credit for playing the whole game though. With only eight players, they played sixty minutes of ice hockey. That's a lot. So even though they lost 18-1, I gotta give em credit.
You can now choose which stylesheet you want from the options on the right. Note that the three standard options aren't quite ready yet, so you really only have three types to pick from.
I found out yesterday morning that I was accepted to the University of Arizona graduate school for Astronomy. This was rather exciting because I think Arizona is one of the best schools out there, so it helped to relieve me of stress. Although I can't help thinking the stupid thought that since I haven't heard back from the other schools that my chances of getting into them are smaller, which is immediately followed by the thought of 'what will I do if Arizona and Colorado are the only two schools I get into?'. Not very productive.
Anyway, I will leave you with this comment on my acceptance to Arizona from my friend Eric Nielsen, who graduated on time (weirdo) from UC Berkeley and is now a first year grad student at Arizona in Astronomy:
So, congrats again on writing a good enough statement of purpose to
utterly hide the details of who you actually are.
Yes indeed.
Sean O'Keefe, administrator of NASA, has decreed that the final servicing mission to the HST will not happen. The net result of this is that Hubble will probably begin to malfunction a few years prior to its previously scheduled retirement year of 2010.
Apparently, Mr. O'Keefe has done this because of the risk to the shuttle crew that would be going up to do the servicing mission and because of the president's plans for establishing an American presence on Mars.
From the perspective of a scientist, this whole thing is absurd. The science potential of an hour of HST exposure time is probably greater than that of walking (or perhaps driving) around on Mars. In fact, the only thing you get by putting somebody on Mars is the ability to say that it is achievable, which to me is not worth that much. In my opinion (and I believe most of the scientific community shares this idea), the value of keeping HST alive far outweighs the value of putting somebody on Mars.
That being said, it seems there are a lot of people who think the main benefit of HST is its "pretty pictures" and that it should be kept alive mainly for the sentimental value it has. These people want to do whatever it takes to bring HST back down to earth in one piece so it can spend the rest of its days in a museum. Well, that's a nice idea but I think it costs too much, and I think most people would be unwilling to support such a venture financially.
Anyway, I can accept the safety risks to the astronauts as a valid reason for cancelling the servicing mission, but the notion of saving money for a worthless trip to Mars is ludicrous.
After two interesting ( a snicker arises from the peanut gallery---or at least, it would if enough people visited the site to constitute a peanut gallery) posts, we're back to the mold with a simple update of what's been going on in my life.
Friday night: Won 3rd place in a poker tournament of 41 people, earning a $30 prize for a $5 entry fee. It should be noted that the players were mainly from the astro and physics depts.
Friday night, later: Watched Cal ice hockey lose to a clearly inferior team in UCLA. However, if there were never upsets, I guess we never would have had the Miracle on Ice.
Saturday morning: Went home for my Dad's birthday.
Saturday night: Went out to a nice restaurant with my family. Warm avocado prawns, mmm, doesn't get much better than that. Dad seemed to like his presents.
Sunday: Watched the Superbowl. Slightly dissapointed in the ads. Missed Ms. Jackson's tits (thankfully). In fact, missed the whole half time show (again, thankfully).
Monday: Was accepted to the University of Colorado at Boulder graduate school in the department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science! It was nice to get the first one as a success. Now I can take all the rejections with ease, knowing at least one school made the dire mistake of recommending me for admission.
Now that the football season is finally over (Patriots 32, Panthers 29), it's time to start thinking seriously about fantasy baseball. So, here's my ideal fantasy lineup. Mind you, this isn't a dream team---rather, it is hopefully much closer to reality. The team consists of 14 position players and 9 pitchers. I will be in an 8 team NL only league where the statistical categories are: OBP, SLG, Runs, RBI, K, Errors, and SB for hitting stats and ERA, WHIP, Wins, K, Saves for pitching. And without further adieu...
Starting Pitchers: Roy Oswalt, Randy Wolf, Dontrelle Willis, Carlos Zambrano, Brett Myers
Relievers: Joe Borowski, Danny Graves, Felix Rodriguez
Catchers: Chad Moeller, Johnny Estrada
First Baseman: Derek Lee
Second Baseman: Placido Polanco
Third Baseman: Scott Rolen
Shortstop: Orlando Cabrera
Outfield (5 spots): Scott Podsednik, Corey Patterson, Brian Giles, Jim Edmunds, Ben Grieve
Middle Infield: Aaron Miles
Corner Infield: Lyle Overbay
Utitlity: Whoever
So that's it, for now. Still about a month away from the draft though, and I've got to get everyone's strikeouts and errors stats to make sure I'm good in those categories too, so the list should change. But it's a start.