Defense date

Now this could change, but I think that its safe enough to write in May 7th as my defense date on your calendars. Or perhaps more importantly to write in the evening of May 7th and my post-defense party (rain or shine, as it were). Or perhaps most importantly of all to write in May 8th as a day not to call me before noon.

PANDEMIC!!!!!

Not just a cause for panic, its an addictive flash game, too. Give it a try!

Pandemic 2

at http://www.addictinggames.com/pandemic2.html

Fire in the sky

Anybody else love meteors? Here's video of a meteor over somewhere in Canada that probably weighed 1-10 tons and was visible over a 700 square km area.

Bad day for a computer crash

I spent the first 45 minutes of my day today getting my computer running again so I could keep working on my proposal, or at least not lose it completely. Finally got it going, after saving some key files while in safe mode. Now as I type this I'm putting all of my PNG work onto a CD.

The Spring-ening

Every year it happens like something out of a horror movie, only made more terrifying by the twin facts that it's real and at first it seems like a blessing.

Following month after month of post-winter Boston weather suddenly a switch is flipped. The skies turn blue, birds sing, the temperature hits 70. After slogging through muck and murk since the previous October, grubbishly pale Boston residents stagger outside squinting in the sunlight. The winter gales slacken and the temperature creeps above 75, pushing 80 degrees. The birds sing, leaves appear on the trees and the streets fill with coeds in brightly colored sundresses. Truly this seems like a new Eden.

The next day, the mercury strikes 95. Sundresses are replaced with sunburns. The air turns green with pollen. Roommates fight over fans as indoor temperatures match those outside. Humidity reaches Amazonian levels. Anything foolish enough to step into direct sunlight is instantly incinerated. The Sissyphean changing of the seasons is past its peak.

Spring was nice this year. It lasted almost 2 days...

Worries

Maybe I haven't been keeping myself busy enough lately, or jogging enough to wear myself out (or drinking enough to quiet my mind), but I've been doing a lot of worrying about the future. I know that climate change is real (note word choice: know vs. believe), but don't really know how it might affect my life. I think the election this fall could have huge effects on our country for years to come, but haven't taken the time to educate myself nearly enough about what any of the candidates will actually try to accomplish (and anyway, I'm not entirely convinced that the American political system is capable of anything except helping people make money). I'm worried about peak oil. What will we do when we can't pump as much oil out of the ground as the world needs run the way we've been running? How will the world grow enough food without fertilizers which are derived from fossil fuels? Is this going to be a good time for oil companies (and their employees) as prices go up, or a bad time as supplies go down? Could the loss of a single resource actually be enough to change the way the whole world works? Will people actually do anything before its too late?

Combine these with the more mundane, or at least more personal, questions I have - when will I graduate? what will I do after grad school? what problems might arise when I move 4,000 miles to Alaska in the dead of winter and only know one person within 2,000 miles plus my job is still in Boston? - and its enough to keep me up at night.

Strangely, its not enough to get me out of bed in the morning, though...