This weekend I took the MSF beginners course. I'd always been somewhat interested in learning to ride, so when Blake and Chad both decided to get motorcycles, I thought it a good time to go ahead and learn how (they having done the work of finding a place to do this). I managed to knock over an old man by clipping his wheel, but otherwise the ( Read more... )

I just experienced one of the oddest (and fairly alarming) sensations. There was something wrong with my right field of view. I was just laying on the couch reading when I noticed a "spot" in my vision like you get after looking at a bright light. Instead of fading, this spot spread out and moved (kind of) but at the same time changed nature to... ( Read more... )

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Today I received a call from an automated system reminding me of an appointment on Monday. I wasn't near my phone so it went to my voice mail system. The idea of the one computer talking all over the voice mail computer delivering its spiel is pretty amusing to me. The reminder system was asking for confirmation that I had received the message, but ( Read more... )

This morning something really weird happened. Right as I got to the bus stop, this old Taurus station wagon basically slammed into the curb on Cromwell. This weird old guy dressed in a tweed suit got out and walked over to me. "May I offer you a magazine to read?" He had in his hand a binder that looked like it was stuffed with magazines. When I ( Read more... )

The official admittance letter from UT arrived in the mail today.

Last night Blake and I went down to San Antonio again, this time for the Chimaira show. Since last time we went to this venue, "doors at 7" meant "music at 9:30" we opted to leave somewhat later. Consequently, we missed the first band, Divine Heresy. Considering the usual quality of openers when there are 4 bands involved, we probably didn't miss ( Read more... )

I just called the graduate office at the UT ME department to ask what the hell, since it's almost December. Apparently they are really behind on getting these admissions considered (though why is kind of a mystery). The advisor happened to have looked at my letter like 10 minutes before I called, and was happy to tell me what it said, even if it's ( Read more... )

I drove down to San Antonio to catch Nightwish last night. The venue was a pizza place with an annex dedicated to shows. In an unusual twist, I was able to park for free. The English doom metal band Paradise Lost opened. I wasn't really expecting doom metal, but they were actually pretty good. They score a 7/10 where 10 is Opeth, so that's high ( Read more... )

Last night Blake and I were talking about staged explosive propulsion after reading about the Operation Plumbbob test launching a manhole cover past solar escape velocity (estimated at ~56 km/s vs. solar escape of ~43km/s). Anyway, we got to thinking and decided that this is now the most awesome (if maybe not the most practical) asteroid defence ( Read more... )