University of Minnesota

Hello!

I'm in snowy Minneapolis. I realized when I landed in the airport here that

1. I have never been to the MSP airport before! That's another one off my list.
2. I had never been to Minnesota before. Another thing to check off.

I'm not sure how many states that brings me to. I think I've been to more than half at this point. Well more than half. I might have even hit 2/3. I should make a list so I'll know where I can just avoid in the future.

Not much new on the job front. I have another tentative feeler from a school, but nothing firm. I kinda just want this whole thing to be taken care of. I'm not big on the whole "stress" thing. I know it's still a little early, but I really want to hear more and now.

So why am I in MN? To visit Tyler Lawson! Yup. He got an NSF which included support for collaborator visits, and this includes me for some insane reason. I figure that we will work like crazy people for a couple of days, then I will flit off to San Francisco where I will work like a crazy man for a few more days editing stuff for the Talbot conference proceedings for the tmf workshop. Just as exciting. All this will take up right up to the 23rd, then I arrive triumphant in Louisiana. I'll be there for a few days, and beyond that, I have no idea. Definitely Boston, but I have no plans yet.

I finally finished all my grading, etc. My friend Tai at UVA will drop my grades off for me tomorrow. Now I get to start collecting data for my courses to see how the computer assisted exams fared! It's a little scary. Even if it doesn't pan out, I'm not going to completely abandon the idea. It'll just give me an opportunity to refine the project and see exactly what worked and what didn't. I'm also really releaved that classes are done. Next semester I am teaching a graduate course on computations in algebraic topology. Not to toot my own horn, but this is something I'm really good at. It'll be fun to really play around with things and to get the grad students here up to speed with a lot of the tricks and techniques.

Not much else going on. I have learned some MySQL and PHP (all in the vain hope of making my computer project even better). I think I will use these to refine some of the online tools we used, maybe making them something that UVA can incorporate into their online package. Speaking of that, I had a hilarious run in with their "new" technology. UVA has spent a lot of time and energy rolling out this "Collab" project. It's built on Sakai and it is supposed to be fantastic. Well, it's not all that much better than the previous "Toolkit". In fact, it seems like they put some lipstick and a nice dress on that pig. This one is just "open source" and "scalable". Well, I finally figured out how to add a tool to my collab site to allow me to submit student grades online (and since collab is plugged right into the university systems, this should be easy). No no! The collab "tool" was actually a link to Toolkit's old tool, and after I finished (it was a laborious, multistep process), I had to print everything out and then submit the hard copies. Insane! Yay paperless workplace.

Santa Mikeya

 


I found this photo when I updated Picasa. Turns out there is a lot of stuff on my hard drive that was basically hidden from me due to disuse. Who knew! It reminds me of a happier time when I was some sort of crazy woman to whom Bridget gave alms.



On a happier note, you shoul definitely watch the Shiba-Inu Puppy Cam!. If I ever get a dog, this is the kind I will get. They are just so cute!

An Experiment

I'm in DC, and as always, I spent an obscene amount of money today. Can I afford it? Yes. I don't spend money that often in the end. It still made me think.

I'm planning an experiment: for one week, instead of buying things, I'll donate what I would have spent to charity. For another week, I'll send it to ING. Could be a fun reality check.

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Tim at the Aquarium

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Boston Wedding Weekend

I'm in Boston this weekend for the wedding of one of Tim's friends from home. The wedding was last night, and it was really beautiful. Very traditional. Very long! I left around 8, having spent 6 hours there. Tim planned to stay there with his HS friends at a hotel. I wanted to work, but I ended up just reading for pleasure. Definitely the right call, since I've been a little overwhelmed.

Around 11:15, Tim called me saying he wanted me to pick him up. That was fine, since I always like to have him around. I got dressed in track pants and a t-shirt and hopped in the car. A few blocks from the reception, a tire blew! I didn't have my wallet, so I got out of the car, in the rain, and changed the tire. I then picked up Tim and some friends, dropped the friends off, and came home. Super exciting!

Today we have a christening, and then we'll have dinner with Mike, Randi, and Rosie. Should be a lot of fun.

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Success!

My trip to the DMV resulted in a newly reregistered car. Good-bye, Ticket!

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Back At The DMV

I'm back at the DMV to get my car reregistered. This has been crazy-making. Unbeknownst to me, I had an unpaid property tax bill for the county that precluded this transaction when I was here on Monday. I paid that online, and now I am back. We'll see if this ends up being another wasted hour.

Of course, the DMV has its charms. The woman in front of me right now has a terrible speech problem and she is rambling on about doctors and her finances. It doesn't get better than this!

Today's the big day! I retooled my CV last night, and I worked on my cover letter. Today I will finish that up, make the requisite file of schools for Haynes, and start applying. Pretty scary. It's nice to be ahead of the game, though.

I also want to see how much of my argument with Mike I can write up today. It'd be nice to get that up on the ArXiv. Speaking of papers, I just got proofs to check for a paper. They look good, so I should be able to get those back to them ASAP. Then it'll be all done!

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Exam Time

Today is the first midterm for Calc II. Not for my students, since they are doing the online thing, but for the other sections. I'm covering for one of my instructors, and she will administer the make-up exam at 7:20AM TOMORROW! I'm happy to fill in this evening.

Today was a lot better. I posted Quiz #2 for both of my classes, and the coders are cooking along. This will make things run a lot smoother! The next one goes up in 2 weeks, so my coders have a good bit of time. Class was fine. I tried some new things, and it went OK. I'll keep experimenting to see the right balance between lecture and seat-work. This hour and a half of quiet should help me make headway on my CV and cover letters. Yay!

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My Minicity

I love this website. It's kinda like SimCity, but you gain population, etc, by having people follow various links. I only have two links so far:

Increase Population

and

Increase Industry

I highly recommend that you click at least one of these links every day!