Good morning everyone! Oftentimes when I drive to work in the morning, I marvel at the sunrise. This morning was the clouds created an amazing display of colors that I could not resist capturing. I took a short detour off my normal commute and went down the Colonial Parkway for a few miles to Jamestown Beach. Enjoy the photos!
Hello everyone! I’m back in town. I had a great trip up to Madison; it had been far far too long since the last time I visited. Thanksgiving with Bill, Janet, and family was amazing (even given the overfullness).
I took lots of pictures (452, I think). I have posted some of the better ones on my Flikr page (link below). Most of the pictures come from the hike I took on Friday in White Oak Canyon (PDF Map) which is part of the Shenandoah National Park.
I made it up to the Lower Falls. I’m guessing it was maybe 4 miles and it was absolutely amazing; the pictures can in no way convey the beautity of that area. I was playing with taking long exposure shots of the river, so you may see several shots of the same location with varying degrees of “softness” in the water. Let me know what you think. Other pictures are from my drive around the county and from Bill and Janet’s house. Now I’m back; what’s next?
Hello everyone. Just wanted to drop a quick link that made me smile and laugh. Its been a good week. (And no, I’m not explaining, it has just been very good.)<p>
Have a great weekend!
Yeh, I'm a bit of a dork, but at least I'm a dork who votes.
Hey everyone, Jeremy here. Who’s that? Oh right, this is my blog. Haven’t felt much like writing lately. Sorry. Work stuff is boring to write about even if it is busy. Personal stuff, is, well, personal, and unlike some bloggers, I don’t feel like airing everything that happens in my life to the internet at large. Still finding my feet on the personal side of life; I am feeling a certain kinship with a toddler learning to walk. I think I’m learning, but certainly will end up with a few good bruises to show for it. So, life has certainly not been boring lately, just not post-worthy.<p>
Went to the GSA/Law School Halloween party last week. That was quite a lot of fun and I got meet a bunch of new people from different grad programs. I found it interesting and oddly comforting that the DJ played a huge selection of music that was new and popular when I was going to high school dances. And to the suprise of many people, I actually danced to it this time around. If I knew I would get as many shocked reactions as I have over the last week, I would have done it sooner, it has been funny. So that is it at the moment. I'm still here. Feel free to ping me and say hi.
I’m walking along a warm comforting street with a charming, intelligent, beautiful woman on my arm. We are laughing, talking, and enjoying each others company as we pitter away a lovely autumn afternoon…
::CHIRP::
The world seems to be fading away?! Where did she go?
::CHIRP::
Crap. I’m in bed and it is dark. But at least it is nice and warm and cozy under the down comforter. mmm. Comfy….
::CHIRP::
It isn’t going to stop, is it? Damn. Now which damn smoke detector is it? Let’s stand here right between the up and down stairs and wait for the next beep. ::brr:: It is cold out here. I think it is waiting extra long now because I am up.
::CHIRP::
Alright, upstairs. Do I have a new battery? Yes, good. There. Now shut up!
Back in bed. It has gotten cold. What time is it? 5:02 am. Crap. So much for getting back to sleep.
Maybe I will see her again tomorrow. ::sigh::
The trouble with making a commitment to yourself to write more in your blog is that sometimes you are forced to write an entry when you can’t think of much to say. It is an interesting quandary at a certain level. I could relate the events of my weekend, but although I had a great time, I don’t think they translate well into engaging reading material. (Short summary: Busch Gardens: fun. Ultimate: awesome game. Dinner with old friend: needs to happen more often. Monty Python with friends: what could be better? Wine Festival: great time, head is better now, thanks for asking.) There is a book somewhere that I heard of that lists hundreds of topics to write about. While an interesting idea and something I might go look at some time, it still strikes me as rather contrived.
As I said, not a very interesting post. I honestly just feel mentally drained at the moment. Sorry. Maybe I’ll get some nice fall photos in the next few days. We shall see.
Go look at this cartoon (I will stipulate before anyone says anything that this post will have less meaning to the non-CS people in the audience, sorry).
What isn’t fair about this? I mean the joke is funny, I agree. The problem is that given that I am taking Analysis of Algorithms this semester all I can think about when I read it is how one should solve the problem. My gut reaction is that it is NP-complete; kind of a sick social version of the traveling salesman problem, maybe. Or to make the obvious bad math/CS joke, it might be more appropos to use the Clique problem as a analogy.
Have a nice day.
Just a quick picture I took this morning on my way to work. The fog was really thick and made for some awesome shots. This one actually turned out. [More pictures](http://www.flickr.com/photos/confusticate/) _Note:_ Flickr seems to be acting up this morning, so if things don't work, come back later.
So, as Jim would say: It's over! The conference finished up yesterday afternoon; I am hanging out in my hotel room until it is time to head back to the train and then home this afternoon. As I had hoped, this was just an amazing experience. For me, the conference material itself was great but was hardly the reason I came. The people the ACLU brings together at this kind of event are intelligent, energetic, and just plain fun to hang out with. This year I was lucky that I found a great group of people to hang out with. At dinner the first night I joined a table with a bunch of law students from the [Brooklyn School of Law](http://www.brooklaw.edu). They were part of a larger group that had been sponsored by the NY and NJ delegations that included people from [Columbia](http://www.columbia.edu), [NYU](http://www.nyu.edu), and I'm sure a few other schools. Quite a few adventures were had including going down to the monuments in the middle of the night (note to self, finding a taxi at 11:30 pm in DC is a challenge), dancing to regae by Maxi Priest, listening to Phillip Glass and Debbie Harry, watching awesome debates with Justice Scalia, Tucker Carlson, John Dean, Rachel Maddow, hilarious satire by Roy Zimmerman and Jim Morris, and many many other events. So thank you to Claire, Josh, Amy, Kate, Erin, Sarah, Alex, and everyone else whose names I can't remember for helping to make this an awesome experience. It was wonderful meeting you all and sad to see you go. Hopefully I will see some of you later this year in NY or in future years at more ACLU conferences. I may post more about specific events, so if you have questions, post them in the comments and I'll try to answer them. There are a few more photos available on my [flickr page](http://www.flickr.com/photos/confusticate/) but I was bad at remembering my camera. Hopefully I should be getting emailed some more later and I will post them then.