papers and procrastination

i once again find myself succumbing to the unbridled procrastination that has controlled my life up to this point. i actually did close to nothing yesterday, despite the fact that i sat in front of the computer for many hours. i must finish this paper within the week. this lollygagging has got to stop.

...and here i am writing in my blog. shocking.

spider watch 2009: conclusion

spider watch 2009 has officially come to a close. i moved out of the apartment last friday. right now i'm staying with pete & mary and living out of my car until i can move into the awesome house my bro just bought in wash park. i much prefer the spider-free futon and homelessness to the 8-legged infestation.

in total, i found well over 200 spiders over 3.5 weeks. that averages to over 8 spiders a day with a low of 4 and a high 29. ew.

special thanks to mary, paul, and levy for helping me move and refraining from running scared after finding a ridiculous number of arachnids while moving things. picked up the couch to find 3, moved the bed to find a few more, lifted the nightstand to find another - they were everywhere. my friends, you have stomachs of steel and no fear.

100

it's official, i have found over 100 dead spiders in my apartment. to commemorate the event, i found one in my bedroom for the first time. awesome.

senor exterminator comes in 45 mins. if this round of poison doesn't help the situation, i'm going to start looking for a new place...

up and up

8/4 18:30 -- 76.
opened the hall closet and found 4 more. moved a box to find another 2.


8/5 11:10 -- 82.
found 1 before i left to go dancing last night, 1 when i came home from dancing, and 3 more when i woke up this morning. another (a different kind, too... crap...) showed up while i was eating breakfast.

i've started collecting samples. i now have 3 in a plastic cup on my kitchen counter.


8/5 23:50 -- 83.
1 sitting by the cats' food bowls when i got home. decided not to look around for more before bed to avoid nightmares...


8/6 11:05 -- 85.
1 at the kitchen entrance when i woke up. he wasn't there last night. watched che kill and eat another a few minutes ago. at least i didn't have to clean that one up?


8/8 14:30 -- 93.
came home after a day and a half at my sister's to 7 dead ones scattered around the house. didn't even look everywhere, didn't want to. 1 live one scampered across the kitchen floor in front of me and my cats. che squished it - it looked intentional this time. he wasn't sad. in fact he looked pretty proud of himself.

more!

holy crap, I just found another 7 by simply looking up. they're in my light fixtures. add on the one i watched my cat kill this afternoon, and the tally is up to 70.

spider watch 2009

this morning's dead spider count is already up to 9, and it's not even noon yet. i even stepped on one while i was stumbling around half-awake at 6:45 this morning getting ready for my run. it gives me chills just thinking about it...

that brings the total since last tuesday to 62.

i think if i hit 100 i will seriously consider finding a new place to live.

why i'm waiting until then, i'm not sure. i guess i want to give my landlord a chance to make it right. he's failing at the moment, thru no fault of his own. he's got an exterminator coming every 2 weeks and is getting the infested tree removed. which is why i can't live here if even *that* doesn't work...

week one, day one

today begins my training regimen for the moab other half on october 18th. i love how the first day doesn't even start with a run - it's a "strength/stretch" day. so mary and i went to a nia class this morning and then i'm going to spinning tonight.

nia was pretty darn fun, i have to admit. think aerobics/jazzercise with the "dance" parts being more akin to Isadora Duncan-esque pretend-like-you-are-child-let-your-body-move-like-a-flower-in-the-wind mixed with earthy feel-the-groove tribal rhythms. kind of a world-ish version of jazzercise. upside: i sweat like north carolina for a solid hour. downside: not quite sure if it did anything? i left with a fair bit of energy still, but maybe that was the point? dunno...

sleep, or something like it

i slept well over 12 hours last night, after a week of no more than 6 per night. anyone who knows me knows that i'm a sleeper. it's what i do best, honestly. i start to feel, well, bitchy if i can't get my required z's.

this morning i woke up refreshed, alert, and (dare i say it) happy. happy enough to actually open matlab and do some research. what is this world coming to???

runnin'

running is one of the things that has kept me sane at this workshop, and kept me busy. i've run 24 miles in the last week (a new record for me?) and i've enjoyed every minute of it. it brings my july total to a whopping... 32.6 miles. i apparently didn't run much in the first 3 weeks.

one thing i learned: it's very important to keep yourself hydrated, even when it's 115% humidity outside. i came back from a couple runs i did outside without a stitch of dry clothing on me. don't get too excited, i was fully clothed. just utterly drenched. and no, it didn't rain. pure sweat, baby. mmm.

reflection on a week

after many days at nc state working on a statistics project i've come to realize several things.

first, statistics is a mystery to me. i mean, i can compute anything you want me to, and even understand what that computation is attempting to explain, but the interpretation is akin to palm-reading. sorry if i offend any of you statisticians out there, but it's true. i can read just about anything i want into the results. any pre-conceived notions you have in your head can be rationalized via one calculation or another. oh, that one didn't line up with what you wanted? no problem, we can explain it away with 12 others...

also, and i don't mean to sound cocky, but i've realized i'm pretty gifted intellectually. at least when put in comparison to many of the people that are supposedly my "colleagues" and at the same level i am. maybe it's just the situation, but my mediocre work outshines some people's best... wow, i feel like an ass for saying that.

lastly, i don't think i can work in industry again. well, i *can* work in industry, i just don't think i want to. not that i never will (i've learned not to write anything off completely), it'll just be my last resort. we'll see what happens when i graduate.

procrastination techniques

my to-do list has grown marvelously long over the last few days. since i'm leaving for nc state on sunday, all of it has to be done before then. fun. of course i naturally find ways to procrastinate. i will list a few examples:

1) why is watching the tour de france so awesome? every morning, i wake up, make coffee, flip on the tour, and watch that day's stage play out on the tellie. phil liggett has to be the best commentator ever - somehow he makes a multi-hour bike ride incredibly interesting.

2) wii fit is a great way to start or end every day. getting 30 minutes of banked time takes a good hour, tho. i have also acquired rockband2 for the wii, which can suck time like no other. but i've found there's nothing quite like wailing on the drums to release a little tension!

3) i just finished reading "the way of the peaceful warrior" by dan millman. totally enjoyed that book - a challenging book, but in a feel-good way. that combo is a rarity to me.

4) facebook gets more time than i would like to admit. when one truly wishes to procrastinate, it is the go-to site fer sure. maybe i should de-activate my account until sunday.

5) arsenal!!! i never get sick of reading the latest gossip on my gunners. (and soon, so very soon, i will be once again blessed with live games every weekend...)

academia

i gave my first academic talk yesterday at the SIAM annual meeting, and it was quite scary. fortunately no one tried to make me look stupid. i think i made myself look stupid enough just by standing up there. does it get easier???

now i have two weeks until nc state, 10 days of hard work there, then i start writing the paper on the work i presented yesterday. hopefully it'll be done by the end of september and i'll be one step closer to my phd...

in other news, i got cable and internet set up yesterday. fsc, heck yeah! 5 1/2 weeks til opening weekend of the premier league, when arsenal takes on everton aug 15th. 1st pre-season friendly is july 18th. hopefully we'll pick up the rockin' little brazilian midfielder melo from fiorentina. apparently they demanded eboue in exchange - take him. seriously. i'd be quite happy if i never saw his pouting on the pitch again.

if anyone would like to watch games at my place, you're more than welcome. just call. i'll be up early every weekend. i'm kinda looking forward to it. is that wrong?

r.i.p. lemma :(

i came home this evening and found my beautiful ivy, "lemma", dug out of her pot and all her roots chewed and eaten; she was murdered by my two cats. i'd had her for 5 1/2 years. she'll be missed.

busy little bee

yesterday i found out i need to be out of my apartment by next wednesday. i hadn't packed a box and i don't get a key to my new place until sunday morning.

not two hours earlier, my advisor told me he needed the first draft of my upcoming SIAM presentation by next wednesday. did i mention i haven't even finished the research for said presentation? the code still has some sizable numerical errors that are screwing with my results.

anyone know how long i can go without sleep and be semi-functional? right now i'm thinking the only way to push thru this week is to make sleep optional.

coffee incident

today i ordered a drip coffee from the coffee cart in the engineering center. i got my change and went to put it in the tip jar. i put it in my freshly-poured coffee instead. nice shootin', tex.

long long time

almost two years later, i've decided to return to blogging. nothing terribly exciting, just a little update/love every once in a while.

i will continue to comment on my boys in red this next season - only 3.5 weeks til the first pre-season game v barnet! we just made a nice little signing, getting the 23yo young belgian center back thomas vermaelen from ajax. should be a nice addition since our defense has been shaky the last couple years...

i'm back at school finishing the phd after adventures in running a tutoring company and then teaching high school in inner city denver. if you ever want to hear some horror stories about our public education system, i've got enough to last me two lifetimes after teaching for a whopping 10 weeks.