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Speaking of photos, I sort of wish I would have taken some of my progress during this whole "packing" business. I think it would be fun later to see my apartment go from "home" to "mess" to "pile of boxes" to "empty." But between my rushedness to get things together day-to-day, and the fact that my digicam has seen much better days, it hasn't happened yet and is probably not worth starting now, this far along. But I'll try to pick up a cheap-o disposable camera and track my new apartment setup.

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Photos galore

First a general announcement (some of you have already heard, but the public-at-large has not, so bear with me): I'm now a Flickr member, so I'll be trying to use this instead of or in addition to my old Yahoo Photo Album. I'll be deciding in the next month or so if it's worth paying the membership price at Flickr or if I'll just keep the free account. But my screen name there is sturose2000.

And now the fun part. I posted (finally!) some of the pictures K and I took while in Tennessee at Great Smoky Mountains. So go ahead, enjoy some eye candy!

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Your call is important to us. Please hold while we twiddle our thumbs.

Today I'm trying to cancel my utilities in St. Louis and subscribe in California. Somehow, the low-tech utils--gas, electric--are able to take care of my requests very promptly, with no hassles. Very polite, too, I might add. Killing my cable TV isn't so bad either. But the telecommunications, oh, that's a whole different story.

I really shouldn't flame SBC because if they (or their bots) read this they'll probably squash my DSL connection down to sub-dialup speeds when I'm not looking, but I just feel the need to vent. I call and am immediately (as in, not even one ring) greeted by an operator. But this is a dirty ploy to get my hopes up falsely, as this operator's sole job is to get my area code (why wouldn't the phone company have caller ID?) and direct my call to the proper region. Then I listen to not-too-bad music at a far-too-loud level while on hold, and am able to speak to someone who can disconnect my phone in STL but can do nothing about transferring my internet account or setting up new phone service in Cali. She transfers me to a "DSL Expert" who is supposed to handle the internet. But for some reason, he thinks that, despite it being clearly described on their website and in all the literature I've ever seen, I can't transfer my account between MO and CA since the regions are handled by different branches under the SBC umbrella. Eventually he gathers enough of my personal information to see a screen that told him exactly what I had been saying all along. So he is going to discontinue my DSL at my current address and set me up with someone to talk to in L.A. to take care of everything on the west coast.

I am connected relatively quickly with somebody from SBC-Cali, but unfortunately it's someone who deals with SBC Business, not Residential. So more waiting. Then an uber-service-rep picks up and we're ready to roll. So I think. Turns out whoever had been living in my new apartment before me had set up a business phone line with AT&T that SBC cannot touch. My job is now to call my property manager and have her verify to the phone company/ies that the old guy moved out, no longer there, gone, bye-bye, and then I get to call SBC again to set up my service. I wait a good hour (after already having been on the phone for nearly an hour) and continue packing in the meantime. Then I call back. Well, landlord can't get in touch with the old tennant, as he seems to have skipped town without leaving any means of contact. We somehow convince SBC to simply tack an additional line into the apartment, completely bypassing the AT&T wire, so I can finally begin to set up my service.

Now, I'm getting local and long distance. But the package I had found on the internet isn't good enough, because I hadn't read the fine print and so for $35 a month I can call within 10 miles or farther than 50 miles, but I can't call anyone 11-49 miles without getting charged my life savings. Upgrade to the $48 package. Fine. And Mr. SBC reads me all the legal mumbo-jumbo that would otherwise be the fine print that nobody ever reads. Next at bat is DSL. I have an account with SBC-Yahoo, still some time left on my contract, and I want to be sure I don't get charged the early termination fee or the setup fee or the gotcha-by-the-balls fee. I think I won't, but after so much confusion I'm not really sure. But now I have my phone set and my DSL set. Time to get television, since SBC also deals with Dish Satellite. Oops! Party foul, I can't get "The Dish" without landlord permission. And I really don't feel like bothering them again today. So maybe I'll just go with the competitor for TV. Digital cable or satellite, I don't care. I don't watch much tv. I could almost get by with bunny-ears, if I was sure broadcast stations aren't attenuated by the mountains nearby.

I'm off the phone now. Thank God. Two hours on the telephone (thank you, headset) just to move my phone and internet. The thing is, the people I talked to were nice, and they tried to be helpful, so it's very hard to get mad. But shit, this was a little out of hand. Done deal. I think next time I move I'm going to get a direct uplink to the U.S. government satellites so I don't need to deal with all these telecom-conglomerate-service-techs.

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Friday the 13th comes on a Friday this month

And it sure brought me some good luck!

First, I was at Wal-Mart, and in the parking lot, staring at me from the ground, was Honest Abe Lincoln. Yes, folks, a shiny 2003 penny sitting there heads-up. Of course I picked it up. My dad always said, "A man who doesn't stop to pick up a penny isn't worth a penny." Maybe not in all cases, but I've got student loans to pay off.

Then, because Wal-Mart didn't have what I was looking for, I went to Sports Authority on my way home. I needed a tube case for my fishing rod. There were a few at Sports Authority, and I couldn't decide between two, one of which had some neat features and was a little heavier and the other that was slightly lighter and austere. I picked the latter because it was $69.99 marked down to $24.97, which was $10 less than the fancy one. Bringing it to the register, I heard the cashier (who insisted it was a "pool case" referring to a pool cue, even though there was a drawing of a fish right on the tag) chuckle after he scanned the tag. I looked at the monitor on the register to see that it rang up for $0.01. One penny. The very penny I had just found in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. So technically, it was free!

The cashier cosulted a co-worker to see if he could really give it to me for $0.01, even though the price tag was clearly marked otherwise. About the time I thought I had K's Six Dollar Dress story trumped, he has to call his manager, who decides one penny is too cheap for a $70 case, but she can give me $5 off. Meanwhile, I don't even care because I would have happily paid the $25 that it was marked. So I got the case I needed for under $20.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, it was too good to be true. I tried to put the fishing rod away, only to find that one of the eyelets through which the line is fed protrudes too far so the rod doesn't fit. All that excitement for nothing.

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Small world

I donned my "delivery boy" hat yesterday and brought K some lunch. While I was waiting in the lobby, keeping to myself and reading some articles for my materials paper, I once again reconfirmed how small a world it is indeed. First I bumped into Joe (a professor, co-worker, and friend) on his way out the door. This wasn't too surprising, seeing as he works in the PT building for his research. But then not even two minutes later, when K came up to say hi and get her food, she introduced me to a classmate of hers who knows a lot of people I went to high school with, including my ex girlfriend. This was more a case of Jewish Geography than anything, but still it is one of those funny things where a friend-of-a-friend somehow brings everything back together again. The theory is that six degrees of separation link everyone, but sometimes I wonder if it's even fewer.

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"Four bumps on your Head"

During a weekend of unbeatable weather and good times with good friends in from out of town, we saw one thing that could have been absolutely terrible. The Cardinals had lost to the Padres yesterday, and we had killed some time at Broadway Oyster Bar before heading back to the Metrolink to go home. At the game there was a whole section of people wearing 4H Club t-shirts, and we were curious about what the 4 "H's" stood for but were still stumped after asking a few members who did not know. We were now standing on the platform for the westbound train, talking to some middle-aged folks who were guessing words with H to try to help us, and a few drunk twentysomethings wearing the shirts had just come down the steps to the eastbound platform (across two sets of tracks). These guys were rowdy, and talking shit for who-knows-what, yelling across to some other Cards fans on our side and trying to get people angry. Zo walks down toward where this is going on, and for fun asks what the 4 H's stand for: "The four bumps I'm gonna give you on your Head" was the answer he got. Then one of them runs up the stairs, across and down to the stairs on our side, and gets in the face of a man wearing a Cardinals jersey (I thought the 4H people at the game were rooting for the Cards, but either way this seemed completely unnecessary). We see the train coming, and everyone on the platform is hoping that it will pull up, and everyone will get on, and the 4H guy will just go back to the other side. But instead, with no warning, no provocation, no anything, Mr. 4H slaps--yes, slaps!--the Cards jersey guy on the face. One of Cardinals friends sort of lunges between them and locks up, grappling style, with 4H, right near the edge of the platform, with the train still rolling up. The two men fall down onto the tracks, the train horn blows, and everyone there is gasping in shock. They both end up getting back up onto the platform, but one has lost his sunglasses on the track so he jumps back down onto the track to retrieve them while the train is still moving slowly towards him! We could not believe the stupidity and lack of judgement these two had, for no apparent reason other than they'd been drinking and exchanged some words, probably harmless words at that. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but this story will still go in the books as one of the closest calls I've seen.

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A host of hosts.

K suggested that I get a web site for when I move to CA. Definitely something I've considered on and off for a few years now. Googling to find places to buy domain names and host my web site give all-too-much information, but I found a few ranking sites that seem reliable/trustworthy enough. Anyone who's done this, or who hosts your own site, can I get some suggestions on what to look for? For a site that would be mostly "friends-and-family" viewed, how much transfer and storage do you recommend? If I do choose to do it on my own computer (in this case I'd probably do it on a Windows machine), what do I need to do with my ISP and with the name registration?

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Welcome back.

It has been positively too long since I've written a post. I guess I've been busy, stressed, out of town, and trying to get away. But a lot has happened indeed since our last episode. Read on, friends.

The best defense is a good offense.

You can all now officially refer to me as Master Stu. ... I successfully defended my thesis for Master of Science in Biomedical Engineering, entitled Immobilization of the Spine: Analysis and Design of an Orthosis. In it, I report the results of experimental and mathematical work on a commercial halo device, describe our group's novel design, and evaluate a mathematical model of the new device to show that it fulfills the design requirements.

I have to dye my hair and learn to surf.

Only a few short hours after completing my defense, I hopped on a plane to Los Angeles. My dad flew out from O'Hare, and we spent a long weekend looking for an apartment for me near work. I found this place in Canyon Country that I really like. So I guess I now have a new home, or rather I will in a few weeks.

Also while in the area, I had dinner with some friends from college who are at St. Jude now. I'm getting ever-more excited about starting work, though I'm not really looking forward to leaving St. Louis.

I really need to comment on one thing I saw in L.A., but this is not for the faint of heart. ...We were driving west on Sunset Boulevard, about two blocks from the coast. The street was lined with shops, boutiques, and cafes. People walked by carrying pastel-colored shopping bags with daity handles, wearing designer sunglasses and expensive shoes. Except one man. He was leaning on a trash can, hands black with filth. We were sitting at a stoplight as we see him reach shoulder-deep into the trash can and pull out a Starbuck's cup. Sitting the cup on the rim of the can, he reaches in again, pulling out another cup and pouring its cloudy contents into the first. My dad and I look at each other, wondering what he's about to do...wash his hands perhaps? No, he takes the cup, the one he just dug out of the trash, and drinks it! No flinching, no looking to see if there are cigarette butts at the bottom, just drinks it down.

Playing with magnets.

I've been working with dicom images in Matlab to quantify the artifact caused by various metals in MR images. ...Unfortunately, the ASTM standard for testing this is extremely vague, and their method does not particularly lend itself well to getting any useful data. So I've been trying to work around it both in image space and in Fourier space, but so far I'm still stuck. Though I must say it is fun to work with the raw images and make "pretty pictures" by trying to colorize the noise and the artifact (which happen to be of the same magnitude, and this is why it's so hard to get any conclusive data).

Cabin fever.

As a graduation gift, Kristin planned a trip to the Smoky Mountains. ...We stayed in a cabin with lovely country furnishings, a beautiful view overlooking a creek, and a relaxing jacuzzi on the deck, at the base of the Smokies in Sevierville, Tennessee. The weekend included a nice day hike to Rainbow Falls (pictures to come), a round of mini golf (though we were both well over par, I beat K pretty bad), good food, local shops, and a brief stop at the outlet mall. The drive was long, but made bearable thanks to XM radio.

All caught up.

That sums up much of what went on. This week I finish up my MRI project and write a paper for Materials. This weekend my friends come in from Chicago. Next week I finish my last final and prepare for the move.

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