The long, strange trip.

Sierras, etc.

2008-03-21T06:28:23Z

As ladylita mentioned, we recently went for our first ski trip. My research group normally has an annual ski trip to South Lake Tahoe, but since my advisor was on sabbatical last year, this is the first time I've been able to go. Unfortunately, I don't think we should have started at Heavenly, but all the same, I thought it was pretty fun. By the end of the day, I was sorta starting to get the hang of things. Sorta. If by "get the hang of things," one means that I could make it part way down a slope before spectacularly crashing with poles flying everywhere, of course. Nevertheless, I thought it was fun, and I'd be up for trying it again, particularly on a more beginner-oriented resort. At the bottom are a couple pictures from the house.

Apparently, this year was a light year attendance-wise, so we only ended up with about 12, as opposed to the ~20 that sometimes go. I actually thought this was a good thing, though, because it meant that we could actually do things like eating and talking as a group, rather than splitting up into little parts. It's always amusing when your advisor cracks open the wine as soon as he walks in the door and keeps it flowing until everyone crashes....

In other news, we're on the lookout for our own place. I appreciated having roommates when I first moved out here, but I'm pretty much tired of it now and ready to get a real place. There's a couple of nice neighborhoods a bit farther down into Oakland that we've been looking at, like around Lake Merritt. It'd be nice to find a place close to where sam works, but Rockridge tends to be really expensive and overly filled with kids for my taste. Still, if the right place opened up, it'd be a pretty friendly commute for both of us, at least until her office moves to the still-undetermined future location that might happen eventually. Now the only frustrating thing is that I've been ready to move for a coupl months now, but our lease isn't up until the end of May, so we're just hoping to find something that will at least let us push off our move-in until early May.

Lastly, it's NCAA basketball tournament time again. I decided to go all optimistic and picked a Tennessee - Texas rematch for the championship, with the real UT (you know, the one that was a school back when that other place was still part of Mexico...) winning it all. Of course, it's a long shot, but it's just so nice that it's even a possibility this year that I had to go for it.

Finally, here's a couple of those Sierra pictures that Sam mentioned. This was actually the view from a balcony outside my advisor's room in the house we rented in South Lake Tahoe. Definitely a pretty place, especially with all the snow!

California's Burning

2007-09-06T18:39:07Z

There's apparently wildfires burning up and down the state right now, but there's two in particular that are having an impact on the Bay Area at the moment. One is a big fire burning in Santa Clara county, just on the other side of the coast mountains from San Jose and Silicon Valley. The other, possibly even bigger one, is burning in the Sierra Nevadas northeast of here, but because of the way the winds are blowing right now, all the smoke from that fire is settling on top of the Bay Area.

The sky has turned a kind of strange brownish color from it, and every now and then while I was walking to class this morning, you can actually smell the smoke from the fire, even though it's about 200 miles away. Fortunately, it sounds like the fires aren't too close to populated areas yet, but they're both supposed to be around 15,000 acres already and growing. The upshot to all the smoke is that the sunsets should be pretty spectacular for the next few days, but it can't be good for the air quality around the state, especially in the central valley, which has bad air even on a good day.

gerbache @ 2007-07-20T21:29:00

2007-07-21T04:29:14Z

We had a pretty nice earthquake early this morning that actually made national news. at least for a while. It was a whoping 4.2, but here by the Oakland hills, where it was centered, it felt pretty big. Apparently, it did some damage around the area, like shattering the windows in the Safeway in Berkeley and breaking a bunch of wine bottles in grocery stores in the Oakland hills. Our house was ok, aside from the fact that all the roommates were shaken out of bed, except for the one who for some reason was in the shower when it happened at 4:40AM.

Apparently, we had an aftershock this afternoon that actually hit 2.8, but unfortunately, I was at work, and my building is like the springiest place ever, so it kind of shakes even when a truck goes by outside or a big person walks to heavily, so we didn't notice it. Hopefully, this isn't a precurser to a big one....

Tahoe fires, microchips, etc.

2007-06-29T01:51:35Z

I’m not sure how much the big fire at Lake Tahoe is making the national news, but there’s some pretty crazy pictures in the SF Chronicle. The wildfire has already been burning for several days, and because of the weather, they don’t think the fire will be contained until sometime next week at the earliest. Hopefully, they can keep it from burning down too many more houses, but it’s already done a lot of damage.

My research center takes an annual retreat at Lake Tahoe during the summer (which is the offseason for the ski resorts up there), which usually involves two days of sitting through talks that are only loosely connected to my work, but this year it was apparently decided that we need more time to bond with each other. The afternoon on the first day of the retreat was spent going out on a hike around the mountains near the lake. The irony of this is that we hiked for something like 8 miles, and all we actually saw of the lake itself of a glimpse of blue through the trees right at the end, but we did get some pretty cool mountain views. We also got eaten by mosquitoes for most of the hike, though I didn’t get it nearly as bad as a couple of our professors did. I’ve got a couple of pictures from the hike attached below the cut.

In other news, I have just recently finished another chip design and sent it off for fabrication. This one is a lot more interesting than the one I did last year, and I’m really hoping that it’ll be good enough to knock out my MS thesis so that I can move on to bigger and hopefully better things. I was getting pretty frustrated with this project, because I just don’t see any way to carry it forward, but at least it’s close to done so I can move on.

Somehow, it just seems like pictures from the mountains here should be in black and white. I think I’ve just seen too many Ansel Adams pictures.....

Pictures from Toronto

2007-06-04T04:14:31Z

Yes, I know, it's been ages since I posted last. This past semester has been pretty crazy, but at least it's finished, and it knocked out one of my breadth course requirements. Research work is going sort of slowly, but at least I'm making progress.

Sam and I took an early summer vacation in Toronto, Ontario. We had a blast and saw a bunch of stuff and took a lot of pictures. We hit up Casa Loma, which is this castle built by one of Toronto's wealthy in the teens on the first day, then we drove down to Niagara Falls on the second. The falls are amazingly huge for anyone who hasn't seen them. It's pretty crazy to think about how much water flows over them every day. another highlight was the Toronto Zoo, which is massive. We also got to see the actual Stanley Cup at the hockey hall of fame! I'm putting a couple of the pictures from the trip down below the cut. I'm still sifting through the pictures and putting some of my favorites online, so I might post a few more here.

This is a butterfly from the butterfly conservatory at Niagara Falls.

This is the Toronto downtown skyline at night, taken from the top of the CN tower.

earthquakes

2007-03-02T07:02:55Z

So it’s been a busy few days for Bay Area earthquakes. We had a 3.4 hit in Berkeley last week while I was at work. That was the first time I’ve felt one there, and it was only like a half a mile from my building, so it was pretty strong feeling, but short. Then tonight, a 4.2 hit on the other side of the hills from us, but even though it was like 10 miles from here, I think it felt stronger. Apparently, it was also followed by a bunch of smaller aftershocks, but they didn’t seem to make it all the way to here. Ahh, life on the fault line.

Earthquake!

2006-12-23T06:57:52Z

We had another earthquake tonight! Two of them in the same spot, both 3.7 magnitudes just east of the house. The first one, Sam and I were off in the city and missed, but this one was enough to definitely feel and see things shaking around in the house.

gerbache @ 2006-11-20T00:21:00

2006-11-20T08:21:50Z

For those of you not familiar with west coast seafood, an annual tradition is the beginning of dungeness crab season, when all the restaurants and Fisherman’s Wharf are buzzing with the arrival of freshly caught crabs just off the coast in the Pacific. In honor of this week, Sam and I decided to make a trek over to the city today to hit up our “municipal crustacean,” as one of the local papers called it. We ended up going to the Stinking Rose, which is a restaurant in North Beach in San Francisco dedicated to garlic. They also are owned by the same people as one of the crab places on the wharf, and serve the same secret recipe of garlic crab. I’m a huge crab fan and have tried many varieties of it over the years, but I think this one might just take the tops. The garlic in the crab, unlike most of their entrees, isn’t really overwhelming, but instead adds to the buttery goodness that is crab. If any of you manage to make a trek out to the Bay Area during the winter anytime, you definitely owe it to yourself to check this stuff out, even if they are a bit on the pricey side.

Otherwise, life has been pretty much the normal routine lately. I’ve been looking into when we’ll be heading back to Tennessee, and I’m afraid this looks like my first year of not being home for Christmas. Right now, the best we can find for tickets home is something like $700, so that’s just not gonna happen. I think my plan is to head that way sometime in early-mid January, if anyone is still going to be around then.

In other news, we had another earthquake yesterday. Pretty nifty, since it was just a small one, but it was enough to give the house a shake. Anyway, it’s getting late now, so I believe it’s off to bed.

gerbache @ 2006-10-23T23:14:00

2006-10-24T06:14:45Z

So I’ve now been nudged by multiple people that it’s time to make a post, since it’s been some 30+ weeks since I last did. So lets see, what’s happened since then? I survived my first year of grad school, took an amazing trip to Europe with Sam, passed my prelim exam for my Ph.D, and am now midway through the fall semester. I suppose that hits the high points in about as short an amount of space possible. Sam has now joined me out in California, so we’re no longer doing the 2500 miles apart thing.

Sadly, my day to day life here has become rather routine and dull, I suppose. I do class, then attempt to get some research accomplished, which involves reading a lot of papers, frowning at a bunch of circuit simulations, and a bunch of staring off into space hoping inspiration will strike.

For a bit more of an exciting update, this weekend, Sam and I went to an amazing benefit concert festival down in Silicon Valley. It turns out that Neil Young has two sons with cerebral palsy, so he and his wife decided to found a school to help them integrate with society, and to fund it, Neil decided to have an annual benefit concert, which is in an all-acoustic format and these days regularly sells out a 25,000-capacity amphitheater in Mountain View. The lineup for this year included Gillian Welch, Trent Reznor, the Foo Fighters, Brian Wilson, Pearl Jam, the Dave Matthews Band, and, of course, Neil himself.

Some of the highlights of the show were seeing Trent Reznor with a string quartet arrangement, seeing Neil do a duet of Country Girl with Gillian Welch, Brian Wilson being able to actually sing still, and Neil doing songs with both Pearl Jam and Dave. One of the funny things of the show was when Eddie Vedder introduced Neil as “uncle Neil” before their duet. One really cool thing is that it’s an annual event, so I think Sam and I have at least one weekend in October planned out for the next few years...

Maybe the momentum of actually posting will continue...it’ll be like opening the floodgates.

an update!

2006-02-18T21:08:56Z

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve made a post here. I suppose I’ll give the quick version of what’s been going on. My trip back to Tennessee was fun, if really rushed. Afterwards, Sam and I came back out to California, where we spent New Year’s Eve in San Francisco, wandered around seeing the sights, and saw an incredible Cirque du Soleil performance. Sadly, this trip, too was too short, and she had to fly back to Tennessee for classes.

My course load this semester is a bit strange. I’m taking more classes than I did last semester, but it seems like I have more time for everything and am keeping up a lot better. That being said, I’m just getting cranked up on some really big projects, so my time may be coming to an end soon. I might end up dropping one of them, because it’s only sort of related to my field, but the grade is mostly based on a big project, and I’m just not sure it’s wise to take on four different projects in one semester.

I recently attended the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, which was a good experience for me to get a bit caught up on what’s current in the research world, which has given me a lot more insight into what I need to be doing here. Plus, I got to hear from the big names in the world of circuits, which is always fun. Granted, I was so busy that week that I didn’t think I was ever going to catch up on my sleep, but still, I think it was worth it.

I think I’m about to have big news on the advisor search and funding hunt, but I haven’t gotten final details yet, so I don’t want to jinx myself by making a big deal about it. Still, if everything turns out like it looks like it will, I think I’ll be pretty much set on my research plans for at least the next few months, as well as getting a bit of finalization on my summer plans.

I’m working on a plan to head back to Tennessee for a few days during my spring break, which falls the week after the UT spring break, for those of you who will be in Knoxville then. This will depend a bit on my advisor situation, though, so I still have to figure out what I can do.

gerbache @ 2006-01-23T13:23:00

2006-01-23T21:23:49Z

So apparently, there’s a group having one of those insane “abortion is genocide” rallies on Sproul Plaza today. In Berkeley. At least there were a few people holding a counter-protest in front of them, but still, I figured I’d have left that crowd behind when I came out here. I wonder if this is from the same nutjobs who held the big march in the city this weekend...

gerbache @ 2005-12-21T00:16:00

2005-12-21T08:16:52Z

Well, my first semester of grad school is officially over now. I suppose it went alright for me. I managed to survive it with a somewhat lower than hoped for GPA, although still respectable, I suppose. I had a B+ in the grad class that I was struggling with all semester. While I held some hopes that she would take pity on my plight and give me an A- for effort, I suppose I can’t complain too much after my shaky start in the class. I also got an A in my undergrad digital circuits class, which I suppose is good since the prof I’d like to work with as my advisor is primarily a digital circuits guy. So it goes.

In other news, my GSI class professor bought a couple of us dinner and a beer at Jupiter tonight along with some rather interesting conversation, including the fact that I apparently should check out a couple of older profs that I had written off as being retired. One in particular wrote the book that is considered the Bible of analog circuits design and who is stepping down from being a big administrator at Berkeley to go back to research. I suppose I have a new project for next semester now.

Sunday night, I went to a jazz concert at this place called Yoshi’s in Oakland, which is apparently considered one of the premier jazz clubs in the -world- by performers, so it gets some of the top people in the business. This show was by this guy Charlie Hunter, who plays an 8-string guitar that has both bass and guitar strings on the same instrument, so he plays both parts at the same time. I’m not talking about really simple stuff here; he plays two difficult parts at the same time. The next day, I was walking up Telegraph and decided to pop into Amoeba Music to check out what they had of his stuff in stock, when these two guys came up behind me and one of them pointed to his latest album and said “hey man, this one is really good, you should check it out.” Well, it turns out that it was Charlie Hunter himself talking to the owner of Amoeba who gave me the album recommendation! Needless to say, I had to get it. I only wish I had realized who it was before he started to walk off so I could beg for an autograph or something.

Lastly, I finally get to visit home! Less than 24 hours now and I get to see Sam again! The next couple days will be spent with her in Knoxville, if anyone else will be in town still, and then I’ll be heading back to Kingston (close enough to Knoxville, I suppose) for a few days to visit the parents. I’m flying back to the Bay Area with Sam on the 30th, where we’ll check out the SF New Year’s Eve scene. Anyway, I have a flight to catch tomorrow at 12:20, so I’d better hit the bed. And holy crap, I just saw that I’m supposed to sit on the plane for 2 hours in Memphis on the way back....yay...leave California at 12:20, get to Nashville at 9:00..bloody time zones.

semester wrap-up

2005-12-10T08:43:25Z

Well, my first semester of being a Berkeley grad student is quickly coming to an end. Today was officially the last day of classes, even though I didn’t have any Friday classes anyway. Now, I have to get myself geared up for finals.

I suppose on the whole that this semester has been pretty good to me. I think I’m getting into the rhythm of things here at bit better now, so my classes have been going much more smoothly than my first few weeks. I also am currently working on developing a research proposal to try to get myself worked into a group. The downside to the way that my department expects us to take a semester or two to explore research groups is that there’s a lot of uncertainty still about exactly what the future will hold for me, but I have an idea brewing right now that I hope will work me into a group with a pretty big name in my field.

In other news, I saw a couple of really good movies in the last two days. Last night I went to a foreign indie called Paradise Now, which is about a couple of brothers living in Nablus in the West Bank who have been recruited to carry out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv and looks at their development over the course of this experience. I thought it was an amazing movie and would highly recommend it for someone interested in that region. It really did a good job of getting into their heads and giving some insight into what would make someone want to do it in the first place. It also just amazes me that the people there live the way they do. Imagine living in Tel Aviv, knowing that there is a reasonably high chance of a bombing happening to you at any given moment. On the flip side, you have the Palestinians who live in fear of an Israeli missile strike hitting their house because the army suspects them of being “terrorists”. Incredible. Hopefully one of these days the two sides will reach a peaceful accord.

Tonight, I saw Good Night, and Good Luck. This one was about Edward R. Murrow of CBS News and his reporting taking down Joe McCarthy. If you haven’t seen this one yet, I’d also highly recommend it. The cinematography and cast are both really good, and really put you in the feeling like you’re sitting in the smoky news room in the 1950’s. The movie is also quite relevant to the current climate of the media in this country.

gerbache @ 2005-12-03T01:38:00

2005-12-03T09:38:07Z

So I came home tonight after a long week of working on my big digital circuits project, expecting to spend a quiet night sitting around the house watching the Daily Show, when one of my roommates comes down as is all like “hey, I’m about to head to Ben & Nick’s [a bar in Rockridge] to celebrate Andrew’s birthday, wanna join?” So of course, I have to tag along, even though I had just poured myself a Brown Shugga beer, which is a “mistake” beer brewed by Lagunitas brewing company and quite strong, for those of you not familiar with California beer. It was supposed to be a barleywine, but they kinda added too much sugar, so it’s turned into a sweet holiday beer. So now, instead of my quiet evening of having a drink and getting to bed way early, it’s after 1AM, and I’m still sitting up trying to finish the one I poured hours ago.

In other news, the project for my digital circuits class seems to be coming along well. See, the trouble with this project is that it’s competitive among the class, but Berkeley is an entire freaking school of overachievers, so I don’t have a clue where we stand in the competition. We have to design an 8-bit adder circuit which optimizes the layout area and performance of the adder, and laying out a circuit this relatively complicated without the use of an automatic CAD tool is a serious pain. Unfortunately, we’ve spent like the past week pulling 14 hour days working nearly constantly on the project, but I think we’re running a little bit ahead of the rest of the class, so that’s a good sign.

After this project gets turned in, the rest of my semester is really going to seem fairly easy, I think. I have a couple of finals to worry about, but somehow, they don’t seem like they’ll be all that bad, especially since I seem to be doing a lot better in the grad class I wasn’t prepared for. My project partner is currently heading to his parents’ house, where he’ll be working on his other class project with his engineer dad, so I’ll be spending the next couple of days trying to get the rest of my homework assignments finished up.

Also, my first semester of teaching is almost finished. I feel almost a little sad about this, because it’s like as soon as I’ve gotten to know some of my students, it’s all over and I have to start again. I think I’ve actually come to really enjoy this whole teaching thing, which I guess will bode well for my future career. Fortunately, I got some positive feedback from my students in my lab section, who said they really enjoyed it despite the fact that our equipment had the funny habit of dying all the time.

Finally, I only have a little over 18 days until I’m heading “home”. I put this in quotes because home seems even more foreign to me now that I’ve moved across the country than it did when I lived in Knoxville. It seems really weird, since I’ve only been here for a few months, but I don’t really feel like I exactly have a “home” in Tennessee these days, since I’m officially a California resident now. The really bright side of it is that I finally get to see Sam again, and this time I won’t be having to worry about my hectic life as a grad student getting in the way of us spending some time together. Speaking of, our Cirque du Soleil tickets came in today, where we get to see their latest show in San Francisco during the holidays, which should be really fun. Anyway, sorry for the lengthy post...

gerbache @ 2005-11-28T09:29:00

2005-11-28T17:29:48Z

So what I find to be really amusing about this article is that just a few weeks ago, there was a pretty amusing article in the Daily Californian, the student newspaper here, about Berkeley High forming a condom club, in which the school was teaching students how to use them and giving away boxes of them. Granted, Oak Ridge and Berkeley are close to as far apart on the ideological spectrum as you can get, but I still think it’s really funny.

Ahh, yes, those public high schools, always taking the opportunity to teach about the first amendment.

an update!

2005-11-26T09:35:02Z

So I know it's been like two weeks since I promised to give a real update, but for some reason, I just haven't been able to find the time to sit down and write one. However, since it's a big break and everyone is gone, I don't suppose I have any excuse not to.

So California has been nice for me so far. I have to say, even after a couple of months, I still love it when I wake up and look out the window to see the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline. I've spent some quality time exploring my "neighborhood" lately, which is a little hard to define because my house is sorta on the border of a couple of neighborhoods. I'm still having pretty regular moments where I'll see something that suddenly reminds me that, holy crap, I'm living in California now.

I think I'm recovering from my experience a couple of weeks ago. Today, I took what I consider to be a big step and went back to downtown Oakland. I have this problem right now that Charlie Hunter, who is an absolutely incredible jazz guitarist/bassist (he plays both at the same time...it’s amazing), is playing at this jazz club in Jack London Square, but my only way to get there via public transit involves me transferring to a different bus downtown, so I was investigating a bus line that goes “near” there. Unfortunately, it won’t work out, but the trip did get me to face up to my demons a little bit and return to downtown.

As for classes, it’s been really interesting. One of my classes is really quite a bit above my head, but I didn’t figure this out until it was too late for me to add another class to replace it, so it’s been a rather bumpy ride. I had a rough beginning, and although I’ve pulled things together for it (I think), I don’t believe it will let me start out my grad school career with a 4.0, which most of you know has been a pretty rough thing for me to face. That class is on integrated circuit filter design and analog/digital converters. My other class is an undergrad digital circuits class that, despite sucking up what feels like the majority of my life so far here, has really gone pretty well for me, so at least it’ll balance out my other class for the purpose of my GPA. It’s crazy, I’m only taking two classes (and attempting to secure a permanent advisor), but I feel like I’m more busy than I’ve ever been with my education. Oy.

Lastly, I finally re-watched Garden State tonight. I think I enjoyed this movie even more the second time than the first time, which says a lot for those of you who heard me raving about it before. I dunno what it is about it, but it speaks to me. Another one that strangely spoke to me was “Funny Ha Ha” which is this ultra-low budget indie movie with a bunch of amateur actors filmed in and around Boston. It’s another one about a bunch of recent college grads who are trying to find their way in life. I really enjoyed it, but if any of you see it, definitely don’t forget that it’s an ultra-low budget indie with amateur actors, or you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Anyway, I’ll try to be more regular now so these entries aren’t this long...

gerbache @ 2005-09-26T00:23:00

2005-09-26T07:23:30Z

So I know it's been a while since I've posted here. This is largely because I've been spending so bloody much time on homework for my classes. Fortunately, in one of them, the professor has admitted that he nearly killed us with the first couple of assignments, so the latest one is considerably easier. I'm actually nearly halfway done with it, which is really impressive considering my track record last week. Unfortunately, my other class has continued its quest to make me feel like an idiot quite successfully.

I did have a pretty exciting time on Saturday morning. A few of us decided that it'd be fun to go for a hike in Tilden Park, which is this huge, regional wildlife reserve next to Berkeley. The particular trail we picked had us go up to this mountain peak where we got a panoramic view of Oakland, San Francisco (including both the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate), Berkeley, Marin County, Richmond, Martinez, and Mount Diablo. We were also really lucky in that it had been foggy towards the City for a while now, but Saturday gave us a perfectly clear view of it. After we took in the sights for a while, we descended and had a mini wine and cheese lunch party that was really fun.

Hopefully, this week won't be quite as brutal as the last couple of weeks. I really need to get back into my quest for an advisor (and, hence, my funding). The nice thing is that the profs I would really like to talk to have all been traveling for the last couple of weeks, so I don't feel like I've totally wasted this time.

gerbache @ 2005-09-23T00:23:00

2005-09-23T07:23:19Z

Despite the fact that I think many of the propositions on this test needed a "This is stupid" selection rather than the agree/disagree scale, it was still pretty entertaining.

You are a
Social Liberal
(88% permissive)

and an...
Economic Liberal
(16% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Socialist

Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating

gerbache @ 2005-09-18T11:50:00

2005-09-18T18:50:12Z

So I haven't made a post in a week. This is because although none of my classes really did anything for the first two weeks, they apparently decided in the third week that they needed to get us going, so I've been gone until late practically every night this week. In one of my classes, I was convinced that I was the worst student because I couldn't figure out the first homework, but it turns out that everyone was in that position, so the prof ended up postponing the work. Hopefully, it'll work out in the end.

I also had a scare this week because I wasn't technically registered for the minimum number of units because one of my courses, which is a 4 unit course, had me on the waitlist, and for my assistantship, I had to be considered full-time by last Friday. Fortunately, I went into the office to try and beg for help on getting registered, and I found out that they had just then increased the enrollment and added me, so it worked out in the end.

Also, I got some more word from the family in the New Orleans situation. Both Greg Sr. and Greg Jr. are currently living with their families in Hammond, LA, which is about 50 miles northwest of New Orleans. Greg Sr's house was one of the few that survived without any flooding, but Greg Jr's house was under a peak of 18 feet of water, and will most likely have to be destroyed. They've also moved part of their business to a temporary location in their current place, but the printing press is still down in New Orleans, and they really have no idea when they'll be able to get it back up, if they can at all. Apparently, they're liking their current location, so they're considering making it a permanent home.

Finally, I found out that mom and my aunt Lynn will be coming to San Francisco to visit in the beginning of October. I'll be quite a popular person that month, because the night they're heading out is the night that Sam will be coming out for a visit! Speaking of, it's only 22 days!

gerbache @ 2005-09-11T22:33:00

2005-09-12T05:33:39Z

I suppose this was a fairly quiet weekend. Amazingly enough, I spent Friday evening working on my TAship. A couple of us decided to go ahead and get our weekend's project for it knocked our early, so we went and got some pretty good Thai food in the gourmet ghetto and attempted to set to work, which was a rather slow and plodding process after the dinner made us both rather tired. Our consolation was that on Saturday, a few of my incoming class gathered for drinks at Jupiter then migrated to a movie theater to see the 40 Year Old Virgin, which was actually pretty funny, even though I'm not usually much of a hollywood comedy fan. I think this group of us has decided to make Saturday night our regular going-out night for whatever random stuff we come up with.

Today, I continued my bizarre new fascination with tennis by watching the finals of the US Open while "working" on some homework. That game is actually really amazing to watch, especially at that level. My household was, of course, rooting for Agassi, who gave a valiant effort and looked like he might pull it off for a while. I think I'm going to try to convince some of my classmates (who also haven't played, preferably) to learn to play tennis with me. Not that I think I'd be any good at it, mind you, but it might be fun to get out and moving every now and then.

Oh, I did finally hear directly from my family. Greg Jr. sent out an email saying that Greg Sr. took shelter in Houston in his motor home, while Greg Jr's family is in Mississippi with his mom. Oddly, Greg Jr. didn't actually say anything about where he is, but wherever it is, it has internet access and he's safe. We still don't know anything about the status of their homes, but then Greg Jr. lives in the City of New Orleans, so he wouldn't even be allowed back in if his home did survive.

gerbache @ 2005-09-09T15:23:00

2005-09-09T22:23:36Z

So first: Yay for Al Gore! Also, yay for Knoxville and Chattanooga for helping out with it. It's always nice to hear good news coming from Tennessee.

Secondly: Yay for finally catching a freaking clue! How much longer are they going to defend this moron? I mean, dude apparently lied on his resume to get the job in the first place, although you have to really wonder why someone who was the former head of the International Arabian Horse Association could even possibly be considered a good candidate for the head of FEMA. Now if they'll just start working on getting rid of Michael Chertoff.....

gerbache @ 2005-09-08T14:14:00

2005-09-08T21:14:27Z

So yesterday I had my big first teaching experience. I suppose it wasn't completely terrible, but I did get caught off guard by one of the questions and kind of fumbled around for a response. On the bright side, I think my students were actually paying attention the whole time, which is apparently a lot better than a lot of my peers can say. Also, I'm in charge of making the discussion notes for next week, so I think I'll be a bit better prepared for my next one.

So today, it's too bloody cold here in the east bay. Apparently, the fog has decided that it just doesn't feel like burning off today, and the wind makes it just that much chillier. In light of this, I am seriously thinking about going and buying a sweatshirt now between classes. Considering it's after 2 and there doesn't seem to be any sign of the fog leaving, I think it's time.

gerbache @ 2005-09-07T11:50:00

2005-09-07T18:50:54Z

Oh, Apple, why do you temp me so....I think I'm gonna have to go take a look at this.

I do wish it had a 6 gig option, but you can only ask for so much.

The dumbass award of the week goes to:

2005-09-04T06:29:11Z

Michael Chertoff, who says that the department of homeland security didn't know that a disaster could cause this much damage to New Orleans and the Gulf region, despite the fact that scientists have been predicting exactly what happened for years now. I'm really beginning to wonder if it might be that we've just managed to appoint the most stupid people in the entire bloody country to be the heads of our various security commissions. I'm not sure which is worse, the fact that he apparently has never bothered to even read about what FEMA reported in 2001 as one of the top three most likely disasters in the nation, or the fact that he is such a moron that he'll say this on national telivision.

I agree that the damage is stunning and awe-inspiring, but no one can claim that this was an unexpected turn of events. Hell, even the local New Orleans news ran a series describing it two years ago. This would be like someone claiming that they're stunned that earthquakes sometimes hit California.....

Personally, I think as soon as this all starts to calm down, the first thing that needs to happen in our nation's planning for the future is to fire both this idiot and the almost as, if not more, stupid FEMA director Michael Brown. Unfortunately, this would require the Accountability President to actually, you know, hold someone accountable for their incompetence.

gerbache @ 2005-09-03T12:58:00

2005-09-03T19:58:10Z

I think I finally have some good news to report on the family front. While I still have not heard about the current whereabouts of anyone from New Orleans, Syndistar, which is Greg's business, has updated their website to say that they are hoping to return to business as quickly as possible, and for anyone with concerns to send email to Greg Jr's Gmail account. I think I can safely assume that they wouldn't be saying this if he were still missing. I'll give a more detailed update as soon as I hear something, but in the meantime, I'd just like to say thanks to everyone for their giving their hope and thoughts to the situation.

In other news, I believe Bill Clinton's response to the Dennis Hastert comment is the best one I've seen yet. Apparently, according to the Washington Post, he said that had they been in the same place when Hastert made his statements, "I'm afraid I would have assaulted him." Bravo for him.

Also, you know the feds have screwed up when even other republicans are sharply criticizing the response, including Newt Gingrich's comments that if we're doing this badly for something that gave us a few days of advance notice, how are we going to react in the event of a sudden disaster, like a nuclear attack? Personally, I'm really glad that California has plans in place in the event of a major earthquake, but I still am concerned about what would happen if one were to strike here. Would FEMA totally screw us over as well? I think it's time we pulled FEMA back out of the department of homeland security and let them get back to saving people the way they used to.