Today was quite the disappointing day. You know, there are just some things that don't seem to work right when you need them to. I went to the lab today expecting to have about a 3 hour job of getting the machine set up and ready to go with some measurements. It turned out that I couldn't even get started. Something happened that is definitely not a good thing to have had happen. The inside of this machine works by having a pump that puts in a small amount of liquid nitrogen to the inner chamber where the sample is being held. What then happens is that the temp of the sample space heats up the liquid nitrogen, and so by a process of equilibrium you get everything to slowly cool down.
What appears to have happened, however, is that the vacuum chamber from which this liquid nitrogen is pumped had gotten some air in to it. Now, one might not think that this is such a bad thing, but the problem with air is that it will invariably have some moisture in it. Now, when you put 60 K liquid nitrogen in to air, you freeze the water that's inside of it. Now, this needle valve which shoots in the liquid nitrogen in to the sample space seems to have frozen over, along with some other areas within the chamber. So what's happening now is we're going to have to warm up everything, which will take a few days, and then pump helium through the space to try and clear everything out. It's going to take a while to see if anything works right or not...but we'll just have to wait and see.
I liked Paul's choices for the letter matches. I guess it does probably take about 90 minutes and then some to get anywhere in A.S. So I'll say that's a good answer, even if it's not the correct one, although if you can't get it after what Paul had... Today's question is called "Take A Break" in the theme of breaking things...sort of.
Discovered in Africa, I spread like a tide
To become a hot staple known the world wide.
A necessity to some, a treasure to many,
I'm best enjoyed among pleasant company.
Some like me hot and some like me cold.
Some prefer mild, others only bold.
Some take me straight, while some like to savor
My essence to which has been added a flavor.
So put down your cares and sit awhile with me;
I'll send you back refreshed and full of energy.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Monday, April 02, 2007
Star of the Show
Props to Paul. He got to the answer quite quickly for yesterday's riddle. Well played. Today's is called "It Helps to Know You're Sport". Here it is.
90 M + I T and E T = G T in a S M
So we opened up our middle school soccer season today. I have to say that I'm quite proud of our team. They stepped up to play with more heart and hustle today than I think I've seen from them in the past 3 scrimmage games combined. They were winning balls in the air, they were going in hard in the challenge, they were hustling hard all over the field, and they gave their all for their teammates. It was really exciting watching them play that way when it's been so hard to get them to that point. I don't know what clicked today to turn the tide that way. Maybe it was that it was a 'real' game. Maybe it was the fact that they got their new jerseys today and were able to wear them. Maybe they've just not been playing as hard all along. I don't really know. I have to give them credit for today though.
The sad thing is, however, that the star of the show wasn't a player for our team that scored 2 goals, it wasn't a team that played their heart out, it wasn't even the other team which ended up winning the game on a well-taken free kick. It was, in fact, the referee (who had a daughter who was a friend of probably half the team that we played). So, as you can well imagine, all the calls went for the other team, our player got a yellow card when the other team player pushed him to the ground, and they scored the game winning goal on a foul called for grabbing when their team had been doing nothing but pushing, grabbing, and holding everyone all over the field. Myself and the other coach both got warned by the referee for our yelling, but when you're trying to defend your players from getting man-handled, I think that it's worth it. It's a good thing the game was almost over when he warned us, cause otherwise I think we'd both have been told to leave.
If there's one thing in the sport of soccer that I cannot stand more than anything else it's when there is a referee who feels like the game is for him. He's out there to do what he wants, and to make the decisions that he wants made so that he can be the focus of attention. He's not out there to let the kids play the game and to let them decide the outcome. What got us both the most was that he was clearly a friend of their whole team. How do you get a ref who is a part of the school that he's refereeing to be the decider in a game? There's a reason that in international tournaments they don't let any referee from a region where the teams are playing from be a ref in any form during that particular game. It would inevitably bring up the question of integrity for the refs should anything be construed to go in favor of the team that he hails from. It's no different here. I hope that ref never does another game for us. But if he ends up doing one for us, he'll not ever hear the end of our yelling to defend our players, and he can tell me to leave the field before I'll let my kids get run over and mauled by a team that he supports while I'm there.
90 M + I T and E T = G T in a S M
So we opened up our middle school soccer season today. I have to say that I'm quite proud of our team. They stepped up to play with more heart and hustle today than I think I've seen from them in the past 3 scrimmage games combined. They were winning balls in the air, they were going in hard in the challenge, they were hustling hard all over the field, and they gave their all for their teammates. It was really exciting watching them play that way when it's been so hard to get them to that point. I don't know what clicked today to turn the tide that way. Maybe it was that it was a 'real' game. Maybe it was the fact that they got their new jerseys today and were able to wear them. Maybe they've just not been playing as hard all along. I don't really know. I have to give them credit for today though.
The sad thing is, however, that the star of the show wasn't a player for our team that scored 2 goals, it wasn't a team that played their heart out, it wasn't even the other team which ended up winning the game on a well-taken free kick. It was, in fact, the referee (who had a daughter who was a friend of probably half the team that we played). So, as you can well imagine, all the calls went for the other team, our player got a yellow card when the other team player pushed him to the ground, and they scored the game winning goal on a foul called for grabbing when their team had been doing nothing but pushing, grabbing, and holding everyone all over the field. Myself and the other coach both got warned by the referee for our yelling, but when you're trying to defend your players from getting man-handled, I think that it's worth it. It's a good thing the game was almost over when he warned us, cause otherwise I think we'd both have been told to leave.
If there's one thing in the sport of soccer that I cannot stand more than anything else it's when there is a referee who feels like the game is for him. He's out there to do what he wants, and to make the decisions that he wants made so that he can be the focus of attention. He's not out there to let the kids play the game and to let them decide the outcome. What got us both the most was that he was clearly a friend of their whole team. How do you get a ref who is a part of the school that he's refereeing to be the decider in a game? There's a reason that in international tournaments they don't let any referee from a region where the teams are playing from be a ref in any form during that particular game. It would inevitably bring up the question of integrity for the refs should anything be construed to go in favor of the team that he hails from. It's no different here. I hope that ref never does another game for us. But if he ends up doing one for us, he'll not ever hear the end of our yelling to defend our players, and he can tell me to leave the field before I'll let my kids get run over and mauled by a team that he supports while I'm there.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Sugar, We're Going Down
So this weekend was the big sailing adventure. It was quite an enjoyable couple of days spent hanging out with Josh, Amber, Tara and Matt, playing a little Wii Sports (that Wii is quite addictive...), hanging out on the sailboat, and even playing some throw-back old-school Mike Tyson's Punch Out for the NES. I was so horrible at that game way back in elementary school, so I had to prove to myself that I could get past the first couple guys in the game. I can. It's brilliant.
The sailboat was quite the ride. At least for the first hour or so. And then, my penchant for motion sickness started to kick in and I suddenly was enjoying it a lot less. Everything was kinda spinning, things looked not quite so inviting, and the general feeling was wanting to get the incessant rocking motion to stop. But, with Amber to the rescue, dramamine came in handy and a couple hours later I was good as new. One word of caution, however, is to try and avoid talk of spewing, losing the lunch, throwing up, or anything else while feeling sick. It generally doesn't help in keeping one from leaning over the edge.
That's actually Josh's second attempt at getting me to lose my lunch while on a trip or ride of some kind. The other was when he took some of us flying in their family's small plane while at Harding. Apparently I don't do well with heights or small aircraft or something, cause man...I was pretty out of it for that trip. He says that I wasn't really myself for a number of hours afterwards...I don't think I was myself for quite a while longer. I guess I need to just keep the dramamine close by whenever I'm going on an ocean vessel or a small plane. Although, I don't really think that I'll be on either of those types of vehicles in the near future.
Seriously, though, it was a fun weekend. The boat really was incredible, and having not been on a sailboat before, was quite the experience with putting the sails up, leaning all the way to one side to walk since the edge away from the wind was practically in the water, and basically just enjoying the peacefulness of being out on the water. The first time the wind caught the sail and the boat took off, I was kinda caught off guard when the whole ship tilted to one side. Then the boat kinda held it's position, and I thought that I'd be alright with it running along like that. Then, I noticed that the boat wasn't moving. Apparently we'd gotten stuck, but after some work with the motor and all of us standing on one side to lean the boat, we got unstuck and back on our way. Then I got the real feeling for how the boat runs in the water. I'd seen sailboats before, but I didn't realize that they ran so low in the water in the direction that the wind is going. I'd have to say, if there were some larger waves with the wind, I wouldn't be surprised for water to be coming up over the edge. But we didn't end up sinking, despite my early beliefs to the contrary. Overall though, I can see why they went touring around all summer in that thing just hanging out. Props to Josh for letting us get out on it and both he and Amber for entertaining us for the weekend.
For those of you that might not know, Mandi has gotten herself a job working for Bechtel as a Primary Contract Specialist. That's about all I can tell you about her job, because that's about all she can tell me about her job. The funny thing is, she is on her way to Nashville for a conference with the company execs without ever having worked yet. She gets back Tuesday night and will have her first day in the office actually learning the job on Wednesday. But mad props to her for owning the interview and getting hired the exact same day. Now it's my turn to have that kind of interview at some point.
I guess the riddle from two posts back about hunting has got people stuck, although some of the answers were quite humorous, and I would have thought they could work. If I actually made these up, I would select Philip's answer to be correct. The "official" answer however, is lice. Who would think of that? I don't know who did in the first place. But that's what they said. Amber, here's you're chance to be proven as a genius! Today's riddle is more of a logic puzzle called Anniversary Discount:
A fancy restaurant in New York was offering a promotional deal. A married couple could eat at the restaurant for half-price on their anniversary. To prevent scams, the couple would need proof of their wedding date.One Thursday evening, a couple claimed it was their anniversary, but didn't bring any proof. The restaurant manager was called to speak with the couple. When the manager asked to hear about the wedding day, the wife replied with the following: "Oh, it was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, birds were chirping, and flowers were in full bloom." After nearly 10 minutes of ranting, she comes to tell him that today was their 28th wedding anniversary."How lovely", the manager said, "However, you do not qualify for the discount. Today is not your anniversary, you are a liar". How did the manager know that it wasn't their anniversary?
The highlights for the coming week? Going crazy at ORNL with sample running in the machine for my thesis work, the start of the season for the soccer team that I'm coaching, the start of the MLS soccer season, the Champions League returns to action in the quarterfinal stage, and my lab section has their last day of lab, meaning my teaching is almost finished at UT. All brilliant stuff, and all to be looked forward to. For now, though, it's off to continue my reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. The current book is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I'm glad that I've picked up reading them again after the long break since I quite (last summer, I think). I figure, though, that I'll have a lot of time to read in the coming weeks while I wait for those samples to cool and warm up, so they should be finished soon. I'll have to find another book after that though. If anyone has some suggestions of good books, I'd love to have them.
The sailboat was quite the ride. At least for the first hour or so. And then, my penchant for motion sickness started to kick in and I suddenly was enjoying it a lot less. Everything was kinda spinning, things looked not quite so inviting, and the general feeling was wanting to get the incessant rocking motion to stop. But, with Amber to the rescue, dramamine came in handy and a couple hours later I was good as new. One word of caution, however, is to try and avoid talk of spewing, losing the lunch, throwing up, or anything else while feeling sick. It generally doesn't help in keeping one from leaning over the edge.
That's actually Josh's second attempt at getting me to lose my lunch while on a trip or ride of some kind. The other was when he took some of us flying in their family's small plane while at Harding. Apparently I don't do well with heights or small aircraft or something, cause man...I was pretty out of it for that trip. He says that I wasn't really myself for a number of hours afterwards...I don't think I was myself for quite a while longer. I guess I need to just keep the dramamine close by whenever I'm going on an ocean vessel or a small plane. Although, I don't really think that I'll be on either of those types of vehicles in the near future.
Seriously, though, it was a fun weekend. The boat really was incredible, and having not been on a sailboat before, was quite the experience with putting the sails up, leaning all the way to one side to walk since the edge away from the wind was practically in the water, and basically just enjoying the peacefulness of being out on the water. The first time the wind caught the sail and the boat took off, I was kinda caught off guard when the whole ship tilted to one side. Then the boat kinda held it's position, and I thought that I'd be alright with it running along like that. Then, I noticed that the boat wasn't moving. Apparently we'd gotten stuck, but after some work with the motor and all of us standing on one side to lean the boat, we got unstuck and back on our way. Then I got the real feeling for how the boat runs in the water. I'd seen sailboats before, but I didn't realize that they ran so low in the water in the direction that the wind is going. I'd have to say, if there were some larger waves with the wind, I wouldn't be surprised for water to be coming up over the edge. But we didn't end up sinking, despite my early beliefs to the contrary. Overall though, I can see why they went touring around all summer in that thing just hanging out. Props to Josh for letting us get out on it and both he and Amber for entertaining us for the weekend.
For those of you that might not know, Mandi has gotten herself a job working for Bechtel as a Primary Contract Specialist. That's about all I can tell you about her job, because that's about all she can tell me about her job. The funny thing is, she is on her way to Nashville for a conference with the company execs without ever having worked yet. She gets back Tuesday night and will have her first day in the office actually learning the job on Wednesday. But mad props to her for owning the interview and getting hired the exact same day. Now it's my turn to have that kind of interview at some point.
I guess the riddle from two posts back about hunting has got people stuck, although some of the answers were quite humorous, and I would have thought they could work. If I actually made these up, I would select Philip's answer to be correct. The "official" answer however, is lice. Who would think of that? I don't know who did in the first place. But that's what they said. Amber, here's you're chance to be proven as a genius! Today's riddle is more of a logic puzzle called Anniversary Discount:
A fancy restaurant in New York was offering a promotional deal. A married couple could eat at the restaurant for half-price on their anniversary. To prevent scams, the couple would need proof of their wedding date.One Thursday evening, a couple claimed it was their anniversary, but didn't bring any proof. The restaurant manager was called to speak with the couple. When the manager asked to hear about the wedding day, the wife replied with the following: "Oh, it was a wonderful Sunday afternoon, birds were chirping, and flowers were in full bloom." After nearly 10 minutes of ranting, she comes to tell him that today was their 28th wedding anniversary."How lovely", the manager said, "However, you do not qualify for the discount. Today is not your anniversary, you are a liar". How did the manager know that it wasn't their anniversary?
The highlights for the coming week? Going crazy at ORNL with sample running in the machine for my thesis work, the start of the season for the soccer team that I'm coaching, the start of the MLS soccer season, the Champions League returns to action in the quarterfinal stage, and my lab section has their last day of lab, meaning my teaching is almost finished at UT. All brilliant stuff, and all to be looked forward to. For now, though, it's off to continue my reading of The Chronicles of Narnia. The current book is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and I'm glad that I've picked up reading them again after the long break since I quite (last summer, I think). I figure, though, that I'll have a lot of time to read in the coming weeks while I wait for those samples to cool and warm up, so they should be finished soon. I'll have to find another book after that though. If anyone has some suggestions of good books, I'd love to have them.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Exhibition
It's been quite the week. Starting tomorrow I gain full control of the instrument used in the lab for taking measurements of superconductors. The next three weeks the room and machine is all mine to use to take as many measurements of samples that I possibly want to. It'll be nice, cause that way I'll be able to start writing my paper and moving towards getting everything finished up. Nice.
I'm surprised to say that none of the answers that were given for the last riddle are actually correct, although I did laugh quite hard at Philip's answer, cause I guess it could be right in some sense. But still no correct answer. I'll leave it alone for another few days. Another new one for today, quite interesting. It's a bit of reading, but a good one. A Poem of Biblical Proportions:
Adam, God made out of dust
But thought it best to make me first,
So I was made before man
To answer God's most Holy plan.
A living being I became
And Adam gave to me my name.
I from his presence then withdrew
And more of Adam never knew.
I did my Maker's law obey
Nor ever went from it astray.
Thousands of miles I go in fear
But seldom on earth appear.
For purpose wise God did see,
He put a living soul in me.
A soul from me God did claim
And took from me the soul again.
So when from me the soul had fled
I was the same as when first made.
And without hands, or feet, or soul,
I travel on from pole to pole.
I labor hard by day, by night
To fallen man I give great light.
Thousands of people, young and old
Will by my death great light behold.
No right or wrong can I conceive
The scripture I cannot believe.
Although my name therein is found
They are to me an empty sound.
No feat of death doth trouble me
Real happiness I'll never see.
To Heaven I shall never go
Or to Hell below.
Now when these lines you slowly read,
Go search your Bible with all speed
For that my name is written there
I do honestly to you declare.
We've also had a couple of scrimmages for the middle school team that I coach. We played on Monday against the Oak Ridge middle schools and their team, and kinda got owned. It was impressive, because in all my years playing in Oak Ridge, there was never a tall person on any of our teams. This middle school team had 5 or 6 players that were fairly close to my height. Kinda scary since they are only in 7th or 8th grade. Our team started brightly, and even scored the first goal, but then they just kinda gave up on stuff and got run over. The main problem is that they don't seem to get the idea of man marking. Myself and the other coaches spent the entire scrimmage yelling at people to mark up and they couldn't seem to get the idea of getting on a man and staying with them. I don't know how to impress that idea on them any better. We even pulled the entire defensive back four and told them that they needed to figure it out, sent them back in 10 mins later, and they still couldn't do it. Hopefully tomorrow's scrimmage will go better. We'll just have to wait and see.
I guess I don't particularly have any good stories at the moment. I should have some better ones after the weekend that will be spent in SC in Charleston. I'm looking forward to it. Speaking of which, I need to give Josh a call back...
I'm surprised to say that none of the answers that were given for the last riddle are actually correct, although I did laugh quite hard at Philip's answer, cause I guess it could be right in some sense. But still no correct answer. I'll leave it alone for another few days. Another new one for today, quite interesting. It's a bit of reading, but a good one. A Poem of Biblical Proportions:
Adam, God made out of dust
But thought it best to make me first,
So I was made before man
To answer God's most Holy plan.
A living being I became
And Adam gave to me my name.
I from his presence then withdrew
And more of Adam never knew.
I did my Maker's law obey
Nor ever went from it astray.
Thousands of miles I go in fear
But seldom on earth appear.
For purpose wise God did see,
He put a living soul in me.
A soul from me God did claim
And took from me the soul again.
So when from me the soul had fled
I was the same as when first made.
And without hands, or feet, or soul,
I travel on from pole to pole.
I labor hard by day, by night
To fallen man I give great light.
Thousands of people, young and old
Will by my death great light behold.
No right or wrong can I conceive
The scripture I cannot believe.
Although my name therein is found
They are to me an empty sound.
No feat of death doth trouble me
Real happiness I'll never see.
To Heaven I shall never go
Or to Hell below.
Now when these lines you slowly read,
Go search your Bible with all speed
For that my name is written there
I do honestly to you declare.
We've also had a couple of scrimmages for the middle school team that I coach. We played on Monday against the Oak Ridge middle schools and their team, and kinda got owned. It was impressive, because in all my years playing in Oak Ridge, there was never a tall person on any of our teams. This middle school team had 5 or 6 players that were fairly close to my height. Kinda scary since they are only in 7th or 8th grade. Our team started brightly, and even scored the first goal, but then they just kinda gave up on stuff and got run over. The main problem is that they don't seem to get the idea of man marking. Myself and the other coaches spent the entire scrimmage yelling at people to mark up and they couldn't seem to get the idea of getting on a man and staying with them. I don't know how to impress that idea on them any better. We even pulled the entire defensive back four and told them that they needed to figure it out, sent them back in 10 mins later, and they still couldn't do it. Hopefully tomorrow's scrimmage will go better. We'll just have to wait and see.
I guess I don't particularly have any good stories at the moment. I should have some better ones after the weekend that will be spent in SC in Charleston. I'm looking forward to it. Speaking of which, I need to give Josh a call back...
Friday, March 23, 2007
Real Men Of Genius
I recently discovered one of the catchiest tunes that I've heard in quite a while by the band Relient K. They've been around for a number of years, but I've never really listened to anything by them. They put out a new album this past week, so after reading a review of it, I decided to give it a listen on Rhapsody. The album as a whole is pretty good, but the one song which does happen to be their lead single is pretty infectious. The title is "Must Have Done Something Right", and it just kinda jumps in to your head and stays there. Head here to see the video and hear the song: http://music.yahoo.com/ar-297583-videos--Relient-K. After just now watching it, it even has soccer involved. What more could you ask for?
Congrats to Lauren on correctly deducing the answer to yesterday's riddle. I wouldn't say correctly guessing, because since it's supposed to be a logical answer, there is no guessing involved. It's like those Sudoku puzzles that everyone works now. You can't guess on it, get it right, and claim to be good at them. Everything has a logical reasoning for why it works. Random ramblings. Today's brian teaser is a good one...or at least I think so. Here it is, entitled Hunting:
Everything that you catch, you throw away, but everything you don't catch, you keep. What are you hunting?
Do you remember the Bud Light commercials that ran some years ago highlighting those "true American geniuses"? They were 60 second spots essentially mocking some of cultures weirdest types of men, or "glorifying" jobs that many wouldn't think twice about. I had a friend of mine from church that played a few on a trip to his parents house, and it got me to thinking about how many I had heard, and that number turned out to be quite low. So I went hunting and found a whole slew of them...I hadn't realized that they'd made that many. Some of them are throw-a-ways, but there are a couple of them that are true gems. Of the many that I found, my favorites would have to be Mr. Used Car Lot Auto Salesman, Mr. 80 SPF Sunblock Wearer, Mr. Restroom Toilet Paper Refiller, Mr. Foot Long Hot Dog Maker, and Mr. Outside the Stadium Peanut Seller. I would put up a transcript of sorts to them...but I'd get in trouble. They are quite amusing though, with the awful background singing, and the pitch-perfect dead-pan delivery from the speaker. If you heard them, you'd remember.
I bring this up, because today I discovered that I might in fact be able to catch some Euro 2008 qualifying games live, on tv, for free. Quite the discovery. My brother alerted me to these programs called TVU player and TVAnt which are free programs that stream tv over the internet. And I happened across a site today that hosts different soccer games from around the world, including these qualifying games that are playing tomorrow. So perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll be able to get it to work and maybe watch Germany vs. Czech Republic or England vs. Israel or something. It should be an exciting day. Real men of genius indeed.
Congrats to Lauren on correctly deducing the answer to yesterday's riddle. I wouldn't say correctly guessing, because since it's supposed to be a logical answer, there is no guessing involved. It's like those Sudoku puzzles that everyone works now. You can't guess on it, get it right, and claim to be good at them. Everything has a logical reasoning for why it works. Random ramblings. Today's brian teaser is a good one...or at least I think so. Here it is, entitled Hunting:
Everything that you catch, you throw away, but everything you don't catch, you keep. What are you hunting?
Do you remember the Bud Light commercials that ran some years ago highlighting those "true American geniuses"? They were 60 second spots essentially mocking some of cultures weirdest types of men, or "glorifying" jobs that many wouldn't think twice about. I had a friend of mine from church that played a few on a trip to his parents house, and it got me to thinking about how many I had heard, and that number turned out to be quite low. So I went hunting and found a whole slew of them...I hadn't realized that they'd made that many. Some of them are throw-a-ways, but there are a couple of them that are true gems. Of the many that I found, my favorites would have to be Mr. Used Car Lot Auto Salesman, Mr. 80 SPF Sunblock Wearer, Mr. Restroom Toilet Paper Refiller, Mr. Foot Long Hot Dog Maker, and Mr. Outside the Stadium Peanut Seller. I would put up a transcript of sorts to them...but I'd get in trouble. They are quite amusing though, with the awful background singing, and the pitch-perfect dead-pan delivery from the speaker. If you heard them, you'd remember.
I bring this up, because today I discovered that I might in fact be able to catch some Euro 2008 qualifying games live, on tv, for free. Quite the discovery. My brother alerted me to these programs called TVU player and TVAnt which are free programs that stream tv over the internet. And I happened across a site today that hosts different soccer games from around the world, including these qualifying games that are playing tomorrow. So perhaps, if I'm lucky, I'll be able to get it to work and maybe watch Germany vs. Czech Republic or England vs. Israel or something. It should be an exciting day. Real men of genius indeed.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Reset
Contrary to the post that Paul put up, Mandi didn't try to hit me with a truck, and a girl didn't try and hit on me at T-Bell. I actually don't think that I've been to a T-Bell in about 6 months...Mandi is home, however, so I guess she would be able to hit me with a truck if she so desired. And even though she's home, she decided to leave me again, and went this weekend to Harding to see some of her friends. That got me to thinking about how many people I know that are still at Harding, and sadly the list is quickly shrinking. I couldn't hardly name anyone that I would actually want to see when I was out there outside of the remaning few that are still on Apocalypse for this semester. Oh well...it has been two years since I graduated, I guess it shouldn't be that surprising. Also, unfortunately the video from last time was taken down due to copy-right stuff, which is unfortunate, cause it was painfully funny to watch.
The soccer coaching front has actually been surprisingly fun. For the most part, the kids are all pretty cool. There are the usual couple that are problems, and there is one that just completely annoys the heck out of me. Everything that I or the other coaches say is met with a sarcastic comment, he does everything half-heartedly (if even that), and is generally disruptive and uninspired in terms of his work ethic. I really don't know what to do about it. It's not like every time we say something, that we can repeat it over and over again because he feels the need to open his mouth and make comments on everything, most of the time in a disrespective way. And it's not like we sit there and beat him down, we try to be encouraging, but when it detracts from everyone else's experience...I'm just not sure how to treat it sometimes. I don't quite know the home situation, but I don't gather that it's all that great, and from his lack of respect for pretty much any adult that I've seen, I don't think he's had a lot of discipline either.
I'll be heading out to SC this next weekend to hang out with Josh Murphy and co. on the boat that he purchased last year. It should be quite the exciting weekend, and it'll be nice to get away from here for a little bit so I think I've not really been anywhere outside of Knoxville since Mandi graduated. I also get to teach the last of my lab sessions in the next couple weeks which is spectacular.
On the master's front, I get the whole lab to myself starting next week for about 3 weeks. My supervisor is married to a woman from China, and they are going to visit her parents. So I've been frantically learning everything the machine that I didn't already know in order to operate it entirely on my own. It's kinda scary, cause other than my supervisor, nobody else in there really knows how to work the machine. So if I get stuck in the next few weeks...big trouble. But I've been starting, stopping, putting together, tearing apart, pretty much anything and everything related to this machine, so I know everything that I need to know. I'll just have to go over a few more things tomorrow and figure out exactly what I should be measuring in the coming weeks. And then it's time to start writing. A lot.
On the TV front, Luke Dockery, this is for you. There is some US Soccer this coming week on Sunday and Wednesday. Nothing really all that spectacular, but it's soccer. This week are international dates so that the European teams can have their qualifying round play for Euro 2008. I wish I could see some of those games...but since we're in the closed-off US, they won't show anything good like that. There's not enough time when there's so much basketball, football re-runs, and world's strongest man competition crap to show.
And of course, the riddle of the day (or in this case, week). This one is called Plain White.
I constantly collide into all the others,
The only one of 16 without colors.
Associated with English and banking and breaking,
The answer is right there for the taking.
The soccer coaching front has actually been surprisingly fun. For the most part, the kids are all pretty cool. There are the usual couple that are problems, and there is one that just completely annoys the heck out of me. Everything that I or the other coaches say is met with a sarcastic comment, he does everything half-heartedly (if even that), and is generally disruptive and uninspired in terms of his work ethic. I really don't know what to do about it. It's not like every time we say something, that we can repeat it over and over again because he feels the need to open his mouth and make comments on everything, most of the time in a disrespective way. And it's not like we sit there and beat him down, we try to be encouraging, but when it detracts from everyone else's experience...I'm just not sure how to treat it sometimes. I don't quite know the home situation, but I don't gather that it's all that great, and from his lack of respect for pretty much any adult that I've seen, I don't think he's had a lot of discipline either.
I'll be heading out to SC this next weekend to hang out with Josh Murphy and co. on the boat that he purchased last year. It should be quite the exciting weekend, and it'll be nice to get away from here for a little bit so I think I've not really been anywhere outside of Knoxville since Mandi graduated. I also get to teach the last of my lab sessions in the next couple weeks which is spectacular.
On the master's front, I get the whole lab to myself starting next week for about 3 weeks. My supervisor is married to a woman from China, and they are going to visit her parents. So I've been frantically learning everything the machine that I didn't already know in order to operate it entirely on my own. It's kinda scary, cause other than my supervisor, nobody else in there really knows how to work the machine. So if I get stuck in the next few weeks...big trouble. But I've been starting, stopping, putting together, tearing apart, pretty much anything and everything related to this machine, so I know everything that I need to know. I'll just have to go over a few more things tomorrow and figure out exactly what I should be measuring in the coming weeks. And then it's time to start writing. A lot.
On the TV front, Luke Dockery, this is for you. There is some US Soccer this coming week on Sunday and Wednesday. Nothing really all that spectacular, but it's soccer. This week are international dates so that the European teams can have their qualifying round play for Euro 2008. I wish I could see some of those games...but since we're in the closed-off US, they won't show anything good like that. There's not enough time when there's so much basketball, football re-runs, and world's strongest man competition crap to show.
And of course, the riddle of the day (or in this case, week). This one is called Plain White.
I constantly collide into all the others,
The only one of 16 without colors.
Associated with English and banking and breaking,
The answer is right there for the taking.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
MXC Painful Elimination
Since it's been kind of a slow week, I've been able to catch quite a bit of MXC recently. This could quite possibly be one of the most painful eliminations I've seen. It definitely rivals some of those on the sinkers and floaters games. Prepare to feel pain.
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