Fri, Mar. 21st, 2008, 10:30 am Well see, some things have happened.
These should be old news bulletins to most of you. For the rest, I apologize.
Firstly, Teena found work. After a rollercoaster process wherein she felt alternately like the belle of the ball and entirely shunned (ahem), she pulled out a win and we made a big family decision. Starting in January 2009, she will start a tenure-track position at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin. That's just outside Green Bay, if you are keeping score.
A lot of factors went into the decision including the not-insignificant offer that she take the first semester off to be a stay-at-home mom in Atlanta. We don't plan to move until December and we are already grieving our departure from this place which has been home for six years. I will start out in January staying at home with the little one but after that I'm not entirely certain.
Secondly, Teena successfully successfully defended her PhD thesis on 3/14/08, meaning she has officially earned her PhD. Graduation is next month, but you can see her already in the Mathematics Genealogy project. It turns out she's a direct academic descendant of Lagrange and Poisson (who were total buds with Euler), which is pretty sweet.
If it seems odd that she got the job offer and THEN finished the PhD, welcome to academia. It's a little nuts.
Yay for all this good stuff!! My wife rules. So I guess all the major life events for this year are done, yep, all done. Yep.
Wed, Jan. 30th, 2008, 11:50 pm And now I'm repeating myself, for a cause
Some words I wrote to spam a lot of family, friends (and probably you already):
Dear friends and loved ones,
Let me start this note by emphasizing that I never write these notes. I distrust mass-emails and issue advocacy emails doubly so. I highlight this fact not to apologize, but to drive home the fact that my passion for the topic has finally outweighed the risk of annoying you.
That topic is the Democratic Party’s Presidential Primary Election. More specifically, YOUR upcoming vote. I firmly believe that, if you can, you should vote for Senator Barack Obama.
Obama’s message is clear: our domestic priorities have lost their way, our image abroad is horribly tarnished, and most of all our federal system of government has reached an almost gangrenous level of ethics misconduct, corporate greed, and partisan trench warfare. We need to change things now.
This may sound like every reform-minded candidate ever known, but he backs up his principles with action. Obama has accepted no PAC or lobbyist money for his presidential campaign, yet he keeps pace in fundraising with his chief rival on the strength of enormous grassroots support. Perhaps his greatest achievement as US Senator to date was passing a transparency and ethics reform bill which creates a search engine where we can go online and see where our federal tax money is actually going.
He speaks of ending divisive politics in favor of unity, and he means it. He has fired staffers for “going negative”, and everywhere in his campaign’s Atlanta office are signs urging volunteers to never say anything against another candidate when on a call. From personal experience I can say that his campaign is a symbol of how ready people are to work across traditional dividing lines of race, age, gender, and party.
In taking these extraordinary steps, Barack Obama has galvanized thousands of people who may have never felt more than apathy or disinterest towards politics. This is not just about changing the tone, it is about an approach which every cynical insider and strategist dismisses as hopelessly optimistic. That approach, the message of hope, is working.
In a little more than three short months, Teena and I will have a daughter. I am neither exaggerating nor attempting to pull your heartstrings when I say that I am doing everything I can for the Obama campaign because I want her to be proud of her country. And I want her country to be worthy of her.
This Tuesday, Feb 5 and the primaries which follow are our first opportunity in a generation to change our world for the better with a single vote. Most Super Tuesday states allow registered Independents and even Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary. It doesn’t matter how much support you think Obama has in your state; all Democratic primaries award delegates proportionally. Your vote matters.
I welcome your responses, and I hope this note finds you well. Please do vote, even if you do not ultimately agree with my choice of candidate.
I've started a sort of snarky blog to give myself a professional presence on the internet. The topic is presently specific to IT at Law Firms but you know how bad I am at keeping on topic.
Please go read one of my few entry articles so I don't feel like I'm posting into a vacuum. Getting regular readers would be awesome, but I recognize that can take years. I'll just try to keep writing.
Sometimes legalese is called "boilerplate", and it sounded sort of catchy. It also foreshadows my intention to turn up the critical heat on my own industry.
Since I've started working out, I've noticed how good it feels to lift weights in kilograms instead of pounds. Larger units make achievement feel more solid. Part of it is the novelty of the unit, but it also somehow feels simpler, rounded off, clean.
All of this is to say: I weigh 15 stone as of this morning.
For those of you keeping track, that's Dave: 20 lbs, Teena: 15 lbs. The only problem? I'm putting on muscle mass and that means my weight loss will slow. Seeing as we are now at Week 24, my lead should still be sufficient to keep up with her likely pound-per-week pace over the next couple months. Plus, she's not gaining as much as many women, thanks largly in part to her healthy eating and weekly swimming. Yay Teena!!
Nothing, much, just helping Teena apply for jobs which will change our lives for ever, meeting my sister's awesome fiance, and uh, procreating.
Right, right, understatement. Cute, but sort of annoying.
Yep. Just like Facebook links to potentially unavailable content.
Oookay. Anyway, what's with the subject line of this post?
Heh, that's the current score. You see, the Mrs. is going to gain a lot of weight between now and May. My job is to lose at least as much as she gains. As you can see I am currently beating her handily. Given what I've heard about the third trimester, I'm going to need the head start.
Oh cool, are you working out or dieting, or something?
Would you care to close this entirely artificial conversation with a random shout out?
If you insist. Anyone who isn't reading Dinosaur Comics and/or Dresden Codak is missing out. The former is really awesomely word-geeky (see below), the latter is mystical sci-fi with gorgeous artwork.
I'm so proud of my denomination for our commitment to a "dialog first, big-tent, unity matters" approach to religion:
Check out how half of these Google News headlines say "Episcopal Church conceeds to the conservatives" while the other half say "Episcopal Church stands its ground on gay issue". That's the via media, baby.
Tue, May. 1st, 2007, 01:14 pm Teena is doing fine after surgery
Well we got up at 6:00 AM to get Teena to the hospital for her planned sinus surgery. I waited and listened to old Bill Cosby albums on my iPod while they prepped her. We had a little time for encouragement and hugs before they wheeled her off at 7:30. A few hours later it was all over, with the surgeon reporting that everything went fine. She's dozing in the recliner which will be her home for a few days.
Three weeks of not blowing her nose, though! That's pretty rough. For those familiar with sinus surgery, Teena's doctor doesn't believe in packing the nose with gauze. Instead he painstakingly stitched her up internally. "Much better for you, much harder for me", he said. Luckily he's a experienced expert at endoscopic ENT stuff, so we are very confident in the results.
I'm excited to hear her sing again. That may come as soon as next week. Thanks for your well wishes, and here's to a sinus infection-free future.
(May 1 - Editing out my stuff. The internet has much more time for this than I do. This should give you all the latest. Suffice it to say this guy has a habit of stealing or at least repurposing clip art in a laughably poor way. Laughable if he weren't getting rich.)
This sort of thing hits close to home for me, because I've always believed my late uncle Marvin Hill's work deserves to be sold in galleries at the prices Todd Goldman commands. Maybe then my aunt, his widow and former collaborator, could have an easier life. Plus, Marvin was an artistic genius, so there's that.
Wed, Apr. 4th, 2007, 11:26 am She said it was now official, so...
The CETL/BP Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award is the only institute-wide award for Teaching Assistants and symbolizes Georgia Tech’s commitment to promoting exemplary teaching. The award has two overarching goals:
To formally reward outstanding contributions made by teaching assistants in supporting Georgia Tech’s mission in undergraduate education
To provide visible incentive for all TAs to exhibit excellence in undergraduate instruction
Fri, Mar. 16th, 2007, 04:49 pm Imogen Heap appreciation station
As some of my Atlanta friends know, I've recently become addicted to Imogen Heap. Like, listening to one album over and over addicted.
Well she's topped herself in making me love her. The below is her live performance of a thickly layered acapella piece ALL BY HERSELF using the digital age's equivalent of tape looping. I had already bought this track from iTunes, but you have to watch it to appreciate what she is doing here. I really (really) want to learn how to do this.
The hotel in the background of the picture is of the Hilton not too far from where I live. It's right across the street from the Marriot and lots of conventions use both hotels at once. During these big conventions (like DragonCon), the cops get really anal about making people use the sidewalks as opposed to just darting across in the middle of the block.
So this absent minded professor doesn't notice this and comes from a country where jaywalking is not against the law. He gets into a misunderstanding with a police officer and the result is an enormous embarassment to the City of Atlanta. All charges were dropped in the end and amazingly he didn't sue, but he got to spend a night in jail.
From the above link is a videotaped interview with the perp, who is incredibly cute and self-effacing even while retelling the brutal treatment he suffered. I admit It's not hard to see how he might piss off a southern cop, but COME ON.
Thu, Nov. 16th, 2006, 07:11 pm We sing good.. in Finnish!
In May the men of the ASOC recorded "Kullervo" by Sibelius, sometimes called his "zeroeth" symphony. We have the distinction of being the first American chorus to record this work.
"The singing of the Atlanta Symphony male chorus ... is the finest that this work has received."
I've been listening to my copy of the recording and I have to say the most stunning thing is how DAMN GOOD the ASO sounds. This orchestra is on fire and it's super exciting to be part of it. I just hope Spano stays in Atlanta as long as possible.
The CD officially releases next week, which means it's not eligible for a Grammy nomination until 2008. Which is just as well, because I'm predicting good things for a certain other ASOC recording this February.
I got a new job. On December 4 I will be a Senior Application Developer for Troutman Sanders, another big law firm in Atlanta. My commute is shorter, and the role is just what I've been looking for. The key phrase here is "much greater creative outlet".
Since this is a public entry, I will not go into great detail on just how happy this makes me. That would be bad form. But I am definitely happy.
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