MDV Torture Over

After three trips to the Arizona MDV, I finally have an Arizona driver's license and my car is correctly registered in Arizona. It really did suck though. The first time I didn't have the title for my car with me, and the second time I didn't bring my checkbook and they wouldn't take credit or debit card. Ugh, that was a lot of wasted time there. But it's finally over with.

Not Much Else To Say

So I'll just present a wrapup for SoE: StEMS.

Dish Racks Rock

I bought a dish rack today at Bed Bath and Beyond, and I'm never going to use the dishwasher in our house again. I'm really excited!

Lots o Stuff

Just got back from a hike up Mt. Lemmon, and I'm finally getting my act together with the picture gallery. It is up-to-date now and all the links are posted on the right. Included are pictures from our road trip to the South and the South Carolina coast as well as recent hikes in the Chiricahuas and up Mt. Lemmon.

Heading Off For Frisbee

When Jeff Lebowski tells us that he hates 'the fucking eagles', it's very persuasive. That is, it makes us want to hate the fucking eagles too. At least, that's what I think, since I think the Eagles are fine. However, some of my friends recently disagreed, claiming that they hated the Eagles before the movie came out. To each his own, eh?

Sleepy

We had our first colloquium of the semester today, and I showed that I'm already in top shape by dozing off intermittently throughout the lecture. Whoo-hoo!

Classes and other Boring Stuff

For a variety of reasons, I'm losing the desire to buy a house in Tucson. What else? I've decided to take a class on topics in theoretical astrophysics instead of a class on writing for astronomers. Again, there were a variety of reasons, but I'd say the primary reasons were 1) the content of each course and 2) the professor(s) for each course. I'm anticipating that the theory class will be my favorite one for this semester.

Stellar atmospheres looks like it will be good. I can't say the same for instrumentation. Fortunately, that class is taught by two professors and a bunch of guest lecturers so half the time it won't be too bad.

With no poker last night, I occupied my time by finally starting HP 4. I stopped reading right before the start of the Quidditch World Cup. Six more nights like that and I'll be done with the book.

A roaring thunderstorm woke me up at 5am. By the time I fell asleep the sky was beginning to brighten. The sun rises early in these parts...

SoE: StEMS Part 8; aka The End

Truly is it appropriate that Sampling the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum ends today. This is because classes begin once again as the fall semester officially gets underway. I will admit that enjoying StEMS would have become a difficult task in the face of attending class on a semi-weekly basis. So far, I've done a pretty good job of living in denial of the impending nature of classes this semester; I still don't know exactly when or where my classes are today. Even better, I'm still not entirely sure which classes I'll be taking! But all that will get sorted out in the first week, if all goes according to plan.

I am actually glad that we won't have poker tonight, because I need to have some time to do stupid stuff like cleaning the kitchen as well as very important stuff like starting to read Harry Potter 4.

Here is the final component of my brilliant masterpiece.

SoE: StEMS Part Seven

I went on a 9.5 mile hike in the Chiricahua's today. It was good. Maybe by next year I'll have the pictures up!

I won the championship poker tournament last night against 5 opponents. Everybody played well but I caught a few good cards at the right time and managed to triumph. So I took home the trophy, which is a Las Vegas license plate that I'm going to put on a wall in my office. That will make two interesting objects in my office (the first being the plant that Tiffany got me).

And finally, we're in the stretch run of Sampling the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum.

SoE: StEMS Six

My roommate and I went on a house inspecting run yesterday afternoon with a realtor. We saw 4 houses over the course of about three hours, and it was very informative. The most interesting thing to me was what I discovered about my own requirements for a house. For instance, I realized that southeast facing rooms get an enormous amount of sunlight and therefore make great rooms for plants. Also, it became clear to me just how important having lots of natural light in all the rooms is. I would say the first house that we looked at (for only $136,000) was closest to meeting these requirements. Unfortunately, the bedrooms were very small and the house was in an industrial neighborhood. Nevetheless, I am encouraged that we found a place that was pretty decent well within our price range on our first visit.

And now for something completely different.

SoE: StEMS V

I went to a baseball game last night to see the Tucson Sidewinders play the Sacramento Rivercats. It was a triple-A game with the subtitle "Thirsty Thursday," because beer was only $1.50 (just a buck for the cheap stuff). It was fine, but it made me want to be out there playing, not watching. Of course, by playing I mean joining some city league team, not competing at a level just below the majors. Unfortunately, doing that would be just too much of a time commitment. I can't see myself being satisfied playing hardball unless my team was practicing 4 or 5 times a week. That's the kind of commitment that I can't afford.

Today I had to trek to the union to get lunch when the nearby burrito stand was closed for some reason. Already irritated by this unexpected detour, I was further aggravated when I reached the union and was forced to eat McDonalds food because all the other lines were 40 minutes long due to the mass of freshmen swarming all over the union. Man, McDonald's sucks!

Here is today's edition of Summer of Enjoyment: Sampling the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum (roman numeral five).

Posted by Shane at 9:01 AM | Comments (1)

SoE: StEMS Part 4

Summer 2005 ultimate has officially ended for my team. We were eliminated by a team we had previously beat twice and lost to once. It was actually a tough loss for us because we were up 10-9 with time running out, but we gave up two scores and the other team won. Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing ultimate every Wednesday for the past 8 or 9 weeks.

And here's part 4 of Sampling the Electro-Magnetic Spectrum: Green.

Summer of Enjoyment: Sampling the Electromagnetic Spectrum, Part 3

With 17 people playing last night, softball was a lot of fun. It seems like a number of the new grad students both at LPL and Steward are going to be cool and come to softball.

I'm feeling under pressure lately from work and general errands that I've been putting off for too long. For instance, I still need to register my car in Arizona, but I don't think I will have time to take care of that this week. Frankly, I'm afraid of going to the MDV or whatever they call it here because it was always a nightmare in California. But, it has to be done... Also, a crack in my windshield will force me to have the windshield replaced soon. I've been stalling on that one for awhile as well, gambling that the crack needs to get bigger before it becomes an issue that I have to deal with.

Then there's the work shit that I have to get done by Friday at lunch. Naturally, that's why I'm spending my morning at home writing in my blog!

Upgrade

I am officially making "Sampling the Electromagnetic Spectrum" a part of the Summer of Enjoyment. This is a significant upgrade because now it means that I must enjoy "Sampling the Electromagnetic Spectrum." However, I think you'll agree after viewing the photo below that I am clearly up to the task.

Meanwhile, it appears there is such a thing as home field advantage in poker, since I won the tournament last night at my house. In fact, there's one key hand I'd like to share with you that I thought was the turning point when it got down to heads up play. I had about 700 chips and my opponent had about 1100. I was on the button with Q4 and decided to raise to twice the big blind. I actually wanted to raise more because the past couple of times I had made the minimum raise he came over the top and I had to fold my hand. But I didn't realize that I was making the minimum raise until it was too late to change my bet. Sure enough, he re-raised me 100 more. Since I was getting 2.6 to 1 odds at that point and since I was on the button, I decided to call, putting the pot at 360 total. The flop was 647 rainbow and my opponent immediately bet out about half the pot for 200. My first thought was that I was beaten and should fold, since I only had bottom pair. But then I thought about it and it seemed really unlikely that he had any piece of the flop. If he had flopped trips I'm almost certain he would have slow-played it. The only slight possibility was an over-pair, but even then I think he would have made a larger re-raise pre-flop. So I put him on a couple of high cards and decided to re-raise all-in. The only slightly bad part of this strategy was that my re-raise wasn't too big compared to the size of the pot. Going all-in meant that I re-raised to 550, so he needed to put in 350 for a pot of about 1100. That's pretty good odds, but if he had what I think he had he made a good laydown. Now if he folded top pair or even middle pair then I think he made a mistake. But I doubt that's what he had.

In any case, I definitely enjoyed winning the tournament last night. Very much in line with the summer of enjoyment.

Ha hahaahhah

Here's a great joke.

So I email my advisor on Friday asking him if I can/should go to this "once every seven years" conference on protostars and planets. Since I get no response for a couple of days, I assume the answer is no. Then this morning, I get an email saying, yeah, you should definitely go! And the punchline of the joke is that the deadline is today at 3pm. hahahhahhah get it? hahahah!

Enough procrastinating, it's time to start bs-ing!

Sampling the Electro-magnetic Spectrum

In today's edition of SES, we have the following fine photograph:

In other news, Eric and I are hosting poker night tonight. In the past, I've wondered if having home field advantage makes any kind of difference in poker. I doubt it has any bearing on our level, but what about the pros? I imagine you're more comfortable playing in a casino you're familiar with. This is definitely something someone could do a study on.

For Mr. Abhishek Roy

Find out about my research interests!

In other news, my roommate and I spent $300 at Costco this afternoon. I also played kickball in the morning. It's been quite awhile since I last played kickball. It was fun, but unfortunately my shins have been hurting quite a bit lately any time I run. I think the primary cause is league on Wednesdays, but I'm obviously not going to stop that. In fact, if any of my loyal readers knows of a way to reduce shin pain, I would be greatly appreciative.

Errand Boy

I spent the morning driving around town taking care of errands. First, I went to Elliot Electronics to buy a cable and some other stuff we need for the lab. Then I drove over to the city parks and recreation office and registered our softball team for fall city league, E division. They claimed that the E league would fill up despite the fact that I was the second team to register. Fortunately, I'll get a full refund in case there is no E league available (as the case last season when we got destroyed in almost all of our games). I should hear back from the city sometime next week regarding the status of E league.

Greyness

I wish my frisbee team had more spirit. For instance, after our second game last night the other team came over to us (most of our players had left by this point) and had this awesome cheer commemorating our effort (even though we lost). We had nothing in response. Not even a "2 4 6 8 who do we appreciate" chant. It's been that way pretty much the whole season. This is in contrast to last season, when my team came up with good cheers after pretty much every game!

Last night I also pondered over how I have an intense dislike for most radio talk shows. I'm talking mainly about stuff like Howard Stern and any other crap morning show that most cities have, but also about sports talk shows or politics talk shows where you basically have one guy (or girl) talking out of their ass about something that they're only pretending to care about because it will increase their ratings. I'll take Gordon Lightfoot over that any day, thank you very much!

A New Low for My Blog

It's Wednesday and I'm going to trim my fingernails.

That's it.

Sometimes You Really Don't Deserve What You Get

Last night I probably made some of the worst decisions at the poker table that I've made in a long time, yet I somehow finished in second place. I should have finished in fifth place when I was up against AJ with A6 but I caught a 6 on the river. I had countless other opportunities to get busted out too, but somehow survived all of them. All except the last one that is. I guess it makes sense in a weird sort of way though; With our stacks close to even in size, I went all-in with AQ against my opponent who called and turned over AJ. The flop was KQ9. The turn was some rag card, but the river was a 10, giving my opponent the straight and the victory. That's the way it goes though, huh?

Getting A Good Night's Sleep is Tough

Lately, for whatever reason, I haven't been able to sleep in at all. I typically wake up about 6 hours after I go to bed. It's something that has happened off and on to me ever since I moved to Tucson, but recently it's gotten worse. So, last night I decided to go to bed earlier in hopes of getting at least 8 hours. My plan was working perfectly initially, as I fell asleep around 11pm, which is close to two hours earlier than usual for me. Unfortunately, a gigantic thunderstorm right outside our house woke me up at 3am and I couldn't fall back asleep till 4 or so. It would have been a beatiful night's sleep too. Sigh...

Working On a Saturday

In part to make up for the Friday that I missed last week and in part because I actually feel like I can accomplish stuff that won't end up being a waste of time, I'm at work today. I did some soldering in the lab but now I'm looking up IRAS point sources so I can overplot them on maps we've made recently of molecular gas in a nearby star forming region near rho Ophiuchus.

I Don't Really Want To Post Today

But I'm going to anyway.

The trip to the LBT went fine. Six hours of driving for one hour of poking around and asking questions at the telescope structure, but it was a necessary thing to do. We got enough information to know what we need to do next and it didn't look like there were any clear show-stoppers, which is not the best news, but it's certainly not the worst either.

I finished Harrington on Hold 'em last night. The whole book was very good. I'll probably order Volume 2 pretty soon.

Field Trip

I'm heading up to Mt. Graham today to visit the LBT and do a scouting trip to explore the feasibility of installing a sub-mm instrument on the telescope. Hopefully, we will find a way to make it happen.

My ultimate team went 1-1 last night. We could have won the second game, but we got just a little bit tired at the end. One week of makeup games is next, followed by the playoffs. We're in 2nd or 3rd place right now, so we're doing pretty good.

A Potential Hall of Famer Tests Positive

In case you didn't know, Rafael Palmiero has been suspended for 10 days because he tested positive for one of the substances that is banned by MLB. MLB does not release publicly the substance, but the list of banned substances is very small, so the test was probably for a steroid or steroid metabolite. A false positive is not very likely. What's even more unfortunate is that Palmeiro swore under oath before congress that he had never taken steroids in his life. That was about six months ago and almost certainly wasn't true. Of course, he now claims that he took the substance unknowningly, so we don't know if he's guilty of perjury.

I think this means that MLB needs a tougher steroids policy.

You Know It's Coming

I played poker last night and finished 12th out of 16. I tried a more aggressive style than I normally use, just for kicks. Here is an example: in the first round in early position I raised to three times the big blind with pocket fives. Normally, I will call with this hand in this position, but with an aggressive style I decided to raise instead. A couple of people folded after me and then Jason re-raised to about nine times the big blind. Unfortunately, I don't remember what the other people in the hand did or what Jason had, but I knew I had to fold. Jason thinks I'm a conservative player, so he will definitely take my early position raise seriously. Therefore, to reraise me he probably has a monster. The possible hand he could have where I wouldn't be a heavy underdog would be AK, but even there I'm barely getting better than a coin flip.

Now if I had just called in early position with my pocket fives and then Jason raised, I would have been much less certain about the strength of his hand. So I guess you could say that the aggressive style worked. I'll keep trying it for the next few tournaments and see how it goes.

Weekend Wrapup

Tiff and I drove back to the bay area on Friday. It was almost uneventful, except that the car broke down about an hour south of Gilroy. Our guess was that we simply overworked the thing because we drove it for 13 hours in the desert heat with air conditioning on most of the time. However, the error light that came on told us nothing more than to "take the car to the nearest Toyota dealership immediately." Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of civilization about an hour south of Gilroy and it was an apparently busy night for tow trucks, so after a CHP officer pulled over to call a tow truck for us, we learned that it would be about 40 minutes or so before the tow truck arrived. We spent most of the time waiting by the side of the highway as gigantic trucks sped by not more than a couple of yards away from us. Fortunately, we decided to try starting the car one more time about a half hour after the cop left and the car amazingly started. We cancelled the tow truck request and made it back to San Jose without incident.

The weekend was nice and relaxing. I read about two-thirds of a new book on poker by Dan Harrington that is extremely good. It's easily the best book I've read out of five (Limit Holdem by Sklansky, Super/System, Pot/No-Limit Poker, and Mike Caro's Book of Poker Tells), probably in large part because it focuses on No-Limit Texas Holdem tournaments, which is exactly what I play these days. The writing is clear and the examples are well thought out -- they often cover areas that I'm usually pretty uncertain of what to do.

The incoming grad students are starting to arrive. I'm looking forward to new people being around. In particular, I hope this will provide a jolt to softball, which has been impossible to get going the past couple weeks due to lack of players.

I think my sore throat is finally abating.