See the USA, in your Pontiac

Hey, they're all owned by GM anyway.

As I hinted before, last weekend I went out to Bethlehem, PA to visit Tamara. I split the drive out over two days because I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into. Mostly, it was a pretty easy drive. There was some awful construction in and around Indianapolis, but that was the worst of it.

The scenery on the trip became gradual more hilly and tree covered as I made my way east. Peaking in the little sliver of West Virginia that sticks up between Ohio and Pennsylvania. Just as you enter W. Virginia on I-470 you cross a bridge between two foothills and drive through a very picturesque little town on the shore of the river and up into the hills. I would have stopped to take a picture, but the exit ramp had about a 70 degree downward slope.

Things got interesting on the PA Turnpike, which is a very unique road. It has these things that the locals call 'curves' and 'ups and downs', the net result of which is that you have to use your steering wheel, even when you're not getting onto a different road! This was a very strange revelation for someone who has done almost all of his driving in the Midwest. The tunnels were also pretty cool, we don't have much call for those here. The last thing that threw me off was that there was no slower speed limit for trucks, they go just as fast as (if not much faster than) everyone else.

One other note about driving in PA (at least around Allentown and Bethlehem) there is a, seemingly accepted, practice involving left turns that would get most Pennsylnians killed out here. If you're at a stop light and the person opposite you is waiting to turn left, they will try to beat you off of the line. Meaning that as soon as the light turns green, they will floor it to try to make their turn before you enter the intersection. Now, as you probably realize, their cars aren't any faster than yours, and since they are, turning it takes them longer to clear the intersection, so you end up having to wait for them. I was not at all impressed with this practice and I couldn't believe that the locals put up with it. But it's pretty easy to get away with since they don't have front mounted license plates, you can't identify them easily.

Tamara's working at a very wealthy, small, religious college. The 'dorm' she was staying in was like a condo. I still can't imagine college kids coming out of the things on their way to class.

She's finally coming home next weekend.

-Tim

Man Down

I got an email today from Alex saying that one of our roommates from undergrad, Aaron Grant, committed suicide earlier this week. Needless to say, this was pretty shocking news.

I didn't actually know Aaron all that well. He first came into our group as a mid-season replacement freshmen year, taking the place of Jason's first (awful) roommate. And he and I shared an apartment senior year with Alex, Amit and Terumi, but since my senior year was really crazy I didn't actually hang out with him much.

Of all of us, Aaron was the most 'normal'. A rare combination of video game/computer geek and baseball fanatic. He was the one who always organized the softball games and the trips up to White Sox games. He always had at least one part time job and was constantly trying new ways to meet girls (but was a very dedicated boyfriend when he had the opportunity).

The wake is on Friday evening and the funeral on Saturday morning. Alex and Terumi are coming down and I'm going to meet them there, it's actually not that far from Kewanee.

-Tim

Voltron: Defender of the Universe

Voltron: The Movie!

Just hope it doesn't suck.

-Tim

Racing the Sun

I just got home from visiting Tamara this weekend. I drove for fourteen hours today, way more than I've ever done by myself before. Here's the basic route. I'm very impressed that both the car and the iPod made it the whole way.

I'll post more about the trip later.

-Tim

Lincoln Square

I really don't think I could live in, or even above, Lincoln Square mall.

http://www.deadmalls.com/malls/lincoln_square_mall.html

-Tim

Photo Op.

This is our reserach group, handsome aren't we?

The photo was taken by Paula Welander at Maitri's graduation party last night.

-Tim

My Laptop's in Memphis

Well, actually it's back now, it just took a short vacation.

Last Wednesday evening I went to wake my laptop up from sleep and found that it had shut itself off. I booted it back up and in a few minutes it shut itself off again, while I was typing! I plugged it in to an outlet, but the same thing happened again. It took me a couple of reboots, but I was able to back up all of my emails and lab data to my desktop. It passed the hardware test, but continued to shut itself off after only a few minutes of use.

The next morning, it wouldn't boot at all. Just a dimly lit black screen and the sound of fans.

Luckily, I had decided to be a sucker and bought Apple's extended 3-year warranty a few months ago, because the normal 1-year warranty had run up. Now, normally I hate extended warranties as much as any one, but I made an exception because:

1) I've never had an Apple computer before and they're notorious for being difficult to repair (it's hard to find parts/open them up yourself). Plus, they've got kind of a bad reputation for first generation products (mine is the first version of the iBook with the G4 processor in it).

2) I've never had a laptop before and they're notorious for being difficult to repair (it's hard to find parts/open them up by yourself). Beyond the hard drive and the ram, there's not much you can do. Almost everything else is soldered directly to the motherboard.

3) The 25% student discount took the edge off a little, dropping the price from asinine to just plain ludicrous.

4) If I did decide to sell it and upgrade in a few years, it would be much easier to sell if it was still under warranty.

The process was fairly painless. Apple shipped me an empty box which arrived Monday morning. I packed the laptop and the shipper picked it up that afternoon. It was in Memphis Tuesday morning and fixed and on it's way back out by that evening. I actually got it back at about 8:30 this morning. All in all it was nice to know that I was covered and it would be taken care of with minimal effort on my part. And my total time without it was only a week. Really, to keep the repairs moving quickly, I don't think they actually do any diagnostics. The report says they just swapped out my motherboard with a new one.

I did have quite a scare though because the repair report stated that my repair was not covered under warranty and that I would get a bill in 5 to 7 days. I called Apple and they swear it's a typo, someone forgot to change the default setting on the form, and that I will not get a bill. They'll certainly be hearing about it if I do.

-Tim

One Fish, Two Fish

A moment of silence for George, my mom's fish from the wedding, who passed on to that great big aquarium in the sky this last weekend. He joins Bubbles, Natasha's fish, who died not long after the wedding.

-Tim

The Honeymoon: Being There, Part 2

I forgot to mention one of Tamara's favorite parts of the Magic Kingdom! In Tomorrowland there was a talking robot garbage can. Yes, you heard me, a talking robot garbage can. The can was controlled by a ventriloquist who just blended in with the crowd. Kids were absolutely fascinated as the can commented on their clothing and thanked them for giving it their garbage.

And on to Thursday, our final day in the parks. We went to Epcot, and we got off to a rather rocky start. Since we had been at Magic Kingdom so late the night before we slept in a little more than we'd meant too. Of course that means that we missed breakfast and got to the park late. By the time we got there the two newest attractions, Mission: Space and Test Track had already filled up so we grabbed a fast pass for Space and went up to check out the countries, only to find out that the World Showcase doesn't open until 11am.

That plan foiled, we cut across to the other side of the park towards The Land. Only to find out that the Land was closed. The whole thing. Tamara had prepared me for the fact that Kitchen Cabaret was gone, but we had no idea that the whole of the Land was closed. They're adding some new attractions (they may actually be open now) and it looks like they may basically be adding an "Air" section to go along with the Land and the Living Seas. But there was some good news...Imagination is back. The last time I was there Imagination was closed and there was no indication that it was going to be back, but it's open again now. It's been completely redone of course, and is different from how we remembered it and so inherently not as good, but it's there and in the end, that's what counts.

By this time I was really hungry and getting very frustrated by all the running back and forth across the park, but it was time for our fast pass on Mission: Space so we went back across again. Space is a very cool ride, but definitely not for small children. There are signs everywhere telling people that it's dangerous and no one susceptible to motion sickness should ride it. Essentially, they put you in a big centrifuge and take you on a simulated trip to Mars led by Gary Sinise. It's very cool! I did get a twinge of motion sickness (and that's never happened to me before) right towards end, but Tamara got off much worse. I knew something was wrong during the ride because she forgot to push her buttons during the mission, I think she was the pilot too so that probably wasn't good. After that she needed to take a break.

While she was resting, I went to get us fast pass tickets for Test Track, we got tickets for 7-8pm! That's how quickly they were going, it was insane. But basically, those two rides were the only crowded thing at Epcot. We went over to the body building next and it was very empty. We walked right onto Body Wars (a simulator ride through the human body like Star Tours goes through space). And caught the Cranium Command show. I never realized how many stars were in that! But the rest of the building had nothing going on and there was no one there. We also had to hit Space Ship Earth, because, well, it's kind of required, you know?

Then we went around to the countries, but we were still both stressed from the week and the hard morning so we didn't really get to do everything we wanted. We did get to go on the boat rides in Norway and Mexico and we ate in Japan. The Japanese food wasn't that great, but the store had some pretty cool stuff.

And later we finally went on the Test Track, which was very cool. They actually take you through a simulated series of car tests like handling, climbing steep grades, ABS braking and then end it with a short speed run, very cool and actually educational. After that, we ran through the Living Seas to make through before the fireworks show started.

It was a little bit of a let down really, I think we were both really looking forward to Epcot, but the stress and closed rides put a damper on things for us. The fireworks, however, were terrific. We were really tired by the time the show had finished, but we got in line (after some confusion) for our stay-late wrist bands because we still had one more ride to hit...The Universe of Energy, another great old favorite. Let me tell you, Bill Nye and Ellen Degeneres are much funnier than normal at about 1am.

It was sad to leave the parks, but we still had a little honeymoon left. Besides, the tickets never expire and are biometrically coded to us, so we're pretty much assured that we'll go back someday.

-Tim

The Honeymoon: Being There, Part 1

First, I have to admit that we went ahead and bought the super-duper tickets. They're good for seven days, they have the park hopper option, and they never expire. We figure that as long as we manage to not lose them, then it's a good deal. I mean, it's a pretty good bet that the ticket price will only go up, you know?

We also splurged a bit by staying in an actual Disney resort (Coronado Springs), rather than one of the cheaper surrounding area hotels. The trade off was that we didn't bother renting a car, which easily saved us the extra we spent on the hotel, but meant we were trapped in Disney's hands for all of our food. Staying in a Disney resort had the added advantage of allowing us to enter the parks early and stay late on certain days. In the end, we both felt staying at the resort was a good move. It was certainly a very nice hotel.

We first went to the parks on Tuesday. We hit MGM Studios in the morning (since it opened early that day) and then the new Animal Kingdom in the afternoon, and finally headed back to MGM to catch the evening laser show. While we were at MGM we of course went to see the Muppets, Indiana Jones, the Great Movie Ride and Star Tours. We also managed to ride on the new Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster--a very fast indoor roller coaster--and catch a preview show of a new attraction; Lights, Motor, Action! It's basically a car/motorcycle stunt show that takes you through the different steps involved with making a stunt sequence for a movie. It was cool, but a little long and certainly not quite yet polished enough for prime time.

The Animal Kingdom had some of that same feel, they're currently building a new roller coaster, but the whole place feels like it doesn't have quite as much to do as the other parks. We were surprised to see Sue on display there! They had her set up outside! But maybe it's silly to think she'd need to be kept indoors, she did weather being buried for 65 million years or so.

Wednesday we attacked the Magic Kingdom, and we were on fire. This was our best day as far as hitting the rides efficiently, it helped that we had finally mastered the fast pass procedure. We spent the morning in Tomorrowland, of course. Riding the old standard, Space Mountain first thing, followed by the new Buzz Lightyear ride where you ride in a slow moving car like in Haunted Mansion but get a laser to zap at hundreds of targets for points. Too bad it was a low power red laser that I could barely see, not that I would make excuses, and Tamara beat me senseless. We also got went in to the new Stich ride and realized too late that it was actually just a redressing of that awful Alien Encounter or whatever it was called. Luckily, the Stich version is toned down and much better.

After that full morning (it was only 11am by then, but eating early is necessary to avoid the ridiculous noon rush), we stopped for lunch at the Starlight Cafe. Whenever you're in Disney World next, go to the Starlight Cafe for lunch, just trust me. The food there was great, and in the park food is an area that Disney as gotten much better in recently. When I was there last, I remember every restaurant as basically having burger, pizza, or chicken tenders with only the packaging changing depending on the theme of the restaurant, well it's not so anymore and the Starlight Cafe was one of the best quick restaurants that we ate at. But the real attraction is the anamatronic lounge singer. He sang songs about gravity. He was awesome.

After that we went on to catch the rest of the old standards, the People Mover, Thunder Mountain, Pirates, Small World, Haunted Mansion and Peter Pan. We also caught a new 3-D movie, like the muppets, that went through classic disney music with the famous characters. It was really good and nice to see Mickey, Donald and the gang back in the spotlight.

Later that night, after the fireworks, we got our wristbands so we could stay after the park had closed for the non-resort guests. We managed to hit Space Mountain, the People Mover and Buzz Lightyear again (this time I managed to beat Tamara with a few lucky shots) before finally heading back to the hotel at about 2am.

Ok, this has gotten really long so I'm going to break it off here. Stay tuned for more soon!

-Tim

The Honeymoon: Getting There

It occurs to me that I never put anything up here about the honeymoon in Disney World. Well, it was quite an adventure to be sure.

To begin, we arrived at the Inianapolis International Airport feeling like we had done a very good job of planning. We had printed out our parking pass ahead of time, knew where to park, and where to catch the shuttle. We had everything covered, and we at the ticket desk an hour and fifteen minutes before our flight. We had taken a lot of extra time planning since neither of us had ever used the Indianapolis airport before. However, there was one thing we hadn't taken into account--Indianapolis does not observe daylight savings time.

"We're here for the ATA flight to Orlando."
"Oh, flight number XXXX?"
"No, flight number XXXY."
"I'm sorry, I can't board that flight, it leaves in 15 minutes!"

We were an hour late and our flight had already boarded.

The agents worked very hard to get us onto another flight. In fact, we got booked on the next flight, of course, it cost us roughly what we had already paid extra, although they did waive the $50 per person fee for changing the tickets. And it was a good thing too, we were actually sold tickets 201 and 202 for a plane that only seats 200 people. In fact, all planes to Orlando for that week were overbooked and this next flight was the only one they would even sell us tickets for. Sure enough, just before boarding started for our flight, they were trying to get two people to give up their seats for free ticket vouchers.

The flight itself was uneventful and when we landed I was assigned to arrange for transportation to the resort hotel. We had heard endless commercials on the radio for the last month about how Disney was starting free transport to their resorts from the airport. Of course, that wouldn't start that until June. *sigh* Anyway, I proceeded down to the lower level to find a bus line or cab company. There were large signs posted listing what the companies could charge for these services, I assume the government must have regulated it. As far as I could tell, there were really only two bus lines, I'll just call them 'B' and 'M'. The two companies had equal counter space, but B had a much shorter (read: no) line at it's counter, and so I went up to them.

I set up a round trip for two with them, but the girl at the counter was curiously lacking in details. When I asked when the next shuttle bus would be, she had no idea. This seemed quite odd, I mean, how could she not know the schedule? It took Tamara and I quite awhile to finally get what was going on. The busline I had chosen, B, was very small, much smaller than the M, which is the one everyone else was going on. In short, she didn't know the schedule because there was no schedule. The shuttle would come whenever she called to tell it that there were customers waiting. And they would drive us personally to our hotel and we would need to call them to set up our trip back the day before we wanted to leave. The flexibility was nice, but it was somewhat unnerving just how small this operation was. To make things just a little more confusing, a busload of Japanese tourists pulled into company B's spot as we walked out of the airport. Luckily, they didn't let us on, who knows where they were going.

As soon as we got onto the actual bus, helped with our luggage by the pleasant-and large-driver, the young woman already aboard with her daughter looked at us and said, "She doesn't know we're here to see," and then she stuck her hands on her head to indicate mouse ears, "so please don't mention it."

The daughter was about 6 years old and extremely cute. She recited times tables for us, excitedly told us about the hotel that they were going to (it had a pool!), all while we were driving by giant signs for Disney World. Her mom referred to her as 'Princess Gullible', we could believe it. We also learned all about her family (they were in Florida to see Grandpa in addition to you-know-who) and she even tried to give us her telephone number just to prove that she knew it.

And even after all of that, we still arrived at the hotel too early to check in.

Ok, getting there is supposed to be half the fun, so I think I'll leave off here. I'll post about our actual time in the park soon.

-Tim

Dr. W

Maitri's thesis defense was yesterday, and we all (including his wife and son) got to go and watch his presentation to his committee. At the start, they kicked us all out of the room so that they could talk about him in private. As we stood outside Maitri joked that they were probably looking at all his grades, and that he was glad that he'd never had a class with any of them. To which I had to point out that I had taken classes from four out of the five of them, including the one from the ECE department. They all agreed that I've been here too long.

It went very well, he got a couple of hairy questions but fielded them well. The progression of the questions through the talk was interesting. At first they were obviously 'examining' him, asking questions about basic concepts related to his research. But as his talk progressed they really turned more to each other and basically just discussed his project in front of him, he (wisely) mostly stayed out of that. Then at the end they hit him with the real bombardment, all kinds of questions spanning from minute details of his methods and conclusions to what could be done in the future with his work.

Then at the end the kicked us all out again to decide his fate. He passed of course, it sounds as if students are pretty much assured to pass before they begin this final process, at least so long as they have a job lined up. ;-) The party is tomorrow.

Soren is next up, he's now aiming to defend in January, although, technically, I've never heard him specified a year. And I keep reminding him that he can't graduate until he finally returns my last few graded Physics 335 assignments. Hmmm...that was how many years ago? Yeah, I may have been here too long.

-Tim