check it

hey all,

i've just run across an awesome photo site: waxypoetic which i think everyone should go check out... this dude's shots are pretty cool.

in other news, i will be building my fixed-gear track/city bike soon. look for pics of the project in a while... it should be fun. i really want a beater bike that will get me around town, but won't get stolen (hopefully). fixes are something i've been thinking about getting into for a while now. i've just picked up a decent old steel lugged frame (centurion) with parts at a garage sale for a good price, and that will be the base of this project... it will start slow but hopefully get interesting soon.

~t

broken toe

i broke my toe. it is swollen and purple, and makes me limp when i walk. i was jumping up in the air to catch a frisbee, and when i landed running with bare feet, i folded my toe in half. maybe i didn't actually fracture it, but i definitely did something bad to it. at least i can still ride my bike just fine.

~t

broke as m.c. hammer

... and that's pretty broke. i just checked my bank balance today and i am poor. so poor, i can't even afford the two last letters in the word "poor"... i'm just po'

i have about a week's supply of staples (pasta and rice) and maybe a little bit of cheese and some celery. between the half a pint of cream and bottle of salad dressing in the fridge, i might even have enough to meet my fat/caloric intake needs. i don't even get paid on the usual day this month, i have to wait until three days later.

this is all due to two things. rebuilding my mountain bike at the beginning of the month (~1000) and paying off my credit line on my card (~1000). now my credit line is back up, and i'm still screwed. that nice tax refund didn't help out quite as much as i would have liked.

to add to the sting, i just spent 17 dollars today on a race-entry fee and license for the boulder racing short-track mtb series, which is held right accross the street from my house. that at least was a lot of fun, even though i got my arse handed to me by kids half my age. people here in boulder are f-a-s-t. it doesn't help that i haven't raced in two years, and i haven't trained to race in about ten. oh well.. it was lots of fun anyway.

i even shot a roll of film, and hopefully got some really cool shots, but i don't have any money to even develop the film, so y'all will have to wait on those pics too. talk about living at your limit... try to do the responsible thing (paying off credit) and you get totally hosed. i miss my old job where i actually had a salary

:(

~t

control panel

we have this picture posted in our office... i always get a little chuckle out of it so i thought i'd post it up here too...



...this had to have been made by some disgruntled (male) engineer who's capable of explaining complicated electrical phenomena on a subatomic level, but is completely clueless when it comes to members of the opposite sex.

~t

lagtime

hi all,

sorry i haven't been keeping up with the posts recently, there's been plenty going on, but i just haven't been spending any 'quality' time in front of the computer recently. i've been busy trying to paw through lots of science journal papers and also busy watching the world cup games... i just need to take some time at some point to write a few updates.


soon,
~t

HOT HOT HOT!!!

uh.... today was ridiculous. 100 degrees in denver, almost the same here.




did have a lot of fun though. after work, a ton of people from the department made it to the southern sun brewery for a going-away-bash for my office mate and co-taiwan-research partner brian, before he leaves for taipei for two months, this saturday. i've already been trying to get him hooked into the taipei-network of friends i've made over the last few months, and apparently he is in for several culinary treats... including, "spicy pot" and/or the goose-meat ("er-ro") joint I like so much in mid-town taipei.


hope things go well... and, regina, if you catch this post... brian is totally up for anything you can throw at him... not to mention I've asked him to drag ling-ho, shao-yi and po-no out on the town at some point... preferably out for a night of boozing, taipei style.


hehehehehe

~t

hot!

weather today:



~t

summer slowness

hey all,

summer is in full swing, which seems to mean that the endless days blend together and no-one really knows what the date is.

that being said, summer in boulder is a lot of fun. outside the lab, my palinspatic restorations, and other office related activities, the environs of boulder provide for just about anything you want to do. today i went for a mountain bike ride (the second real ride since rebuilding my bike) which ended up being about 25 miles long. on my way up the boulder creek path i passed by runners and people tossing frisbees, and numerous kayakers enjoying the uncommonly high flow in boulder creek. once up into betasso preserve i encountered other groups of riders, blasting down the hairy trails in the canyon. it struck me that boulder is very much a playground... catering to the "adrenaline junkies" who love all the same sports i do. i think i had an ear-to-ear grin on my face the entire time i was riding, and it seemed obvious that everyone else i saw out playing was enjoying the day as much as me.

a kayaker surfs a hole in boulder creek

~t

cubicle wars

heya,

so this post isn't literally about cubicle wars, at least not yet, but it does have to do with the unfolding drama of office usage in my department.

our building proctor unilaterally handed down a mandate declaring that all couches / comfortable chairs in graduate or non-tenure-track faculty and staff offices need to be removed by august... all in the name of the efficient usage of space. this decree has sparked a flurry (or blizzard) of office emails pointing out the myriad reasons this is a horrible idea, not to mention a band-aid fix to a much more deeply seated problem which would no doubt remain after all comfy seating arrangement were removed. i (and all of my office mates... yes all ten of them) get the feeling we are going to be asked to share our already crowded office with several more people in the coming year, and couch or no couch, sticking more people in our office is just a bad idea.

~t

new anime!

hey all,

i know a few of you love anime, and some of you know that i also have a deep appreciation for particularly stylish and well executed shows. now, from the makers of cowboy bebop comes a really cool new series called, "samurai champloo". with a similar yet more polished visual style to 'bebop' but set in 1800's japan (to a hip-hop soundtrack) the show promises some interesting and somewhat mysterious storylines.

check out the official site for more if you're interested....

'nite!
~t

ugh

i think this is the first time i have ever experienced a muggy and annoyingly hot day in boulder.

my meeting with the research group went quite well yesterday. it took two hours, and it was a little rushed... it could have taken three. all in all though, i showed them some pretty significant data and had a much more cohesive presentation than i originally thought. we've more or less discovered something new about which faults are active in controlling the uplift and deformation we see in puli, which gives us a much tighter window in which to focus our attentions in the future. the pièce de résistance was karl's accolade at the close of the meeting, "nice job".

as a self-reward, i went out for happy hour at two places downtown, and ended up having one or two martinis too many... while returning home with two bikes in hand (i was walking both my own and a friends bike) i managed to trip myself up and ended in a heap somehow underneath both bicycles. classic.

i think i'm going for a swim now....

~t