East Coast Trip: Day 2

Day 2: Friday, April 17
On this day I drove from Montpelier, Ohio to Pittsburgh. It was a much shorter drive than I thought it would be, man those east coast states are small!



I made it to Mellon Institute right around dinner time, where I met up with John. It's weird, my fate and John's fate are inexplicably intertwined. When I was an undergraduate at CMU, John was my organic chemistry lab TA. When I was a graduate student at Nebraska, John started as an assistant professor in the department. And now when I am back at CMU visiting, John is a research professor at CMU. John let me crash at his place for the duration of my stay in Pittsburgh, for which I am grateful.

We went and had dinner at Primanti Brothers in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh (fries on sandwiches, mmmmm) and then went to the CMU Carnival fairgrounds for a while. There were plenty of lame booths, but a few good ones; the PhiKap one stood out to me. Of course I stopped by the APhiO booth to say hi to the crew. Nobody recognized me, of course (I didn't expect them to) but I chatted a bit with a few of the people who seemed to be in charge and they said that the chapter is doing fine. They were still selling funnel cakes an the lines were still very long. You'd think people would get tired of funnel cakes after all these years, but I guess not.

On the way to carnival, I got to see some of the new additions to the CMU campus. There is a new building in the midst of construction, something like a "center for innovation". This seemed like an awfully vague title to me. I mean, why not call it the "building of good things"? There is also a new performing arts building, I suppose it's not terribly new to the campus but it's new since I graduated. Oh and there's the university center, Skibo's replacement. It just seems way too fancy. When I was a student, Skibo was a run down student union that, really, didn't offer too much. Now the students are spoiled with this immense complex that has pretty much everything under one roof.

While at carnival I ran into Scott, Jen & the family. I got to see Owen for the first time, he's a cutie! Freder is getting really big, too. It's hard to believe that he's almost 4 years old. (Yes, Scott & Jen, that means you are old.)

John and I also had a couple of beers at his favorite bar, Mitchell's. However we didn't get to stay too long as, according to John, "a fight was brewing". (Yeah, it's that kind of bar.) But that was fortunate, I suppose, since we wanted to go see the buggy races in the morning.

East Coast Trip: Day 1

Day 1: Thursday, April 16
On this day I left Lincoln. The goal for today was to drive to "somewhere in Indiana", and then arrive in Pittsburgh the following day. Of course I had stayed up too late the night before, so I didn't actually leave the apartment until about 10 AM. So I wasn't sure if I was actually going to make it. Turns out, though, that once I got past Iowa, it was more-or-less smooth sailing. I easily made it not just to Indiana, but all the way through it. I spent the night in Montpelier, Ohio, which is just west of Toledo.



I came across this interesting sign at a gas station in Iowa:



So I'm wondering, if you didn't get a receipt, what would persuade you to go "see the associate" inside? Wouldn't it mean that you just got free gas, and that you should hurry off as fast as you can? That is, if you were a person who lacked ethics.

Incidentally, I-80 in Illinois is just awful. It's full of patches and it looks like it hasn't been resurfaced in a decade...EXCEPT until you get to the toll portion of I-80, just south of Chicago. There, the road is immaculate. So my working hypothesis is that the good folks at Illinois only seem to spend their road money on the toll portion of their roads. The Indiana Turnpike, by the way, was also quite nice.

Has it really been 3 months?

Wow. I've been terribly disrespectful to all 3 members of my audience for neglecting my blog for so long. My apologies. So I thought I'd re-initiate the blog with a description of my last big journey: my east coast trip. With pictures!

Happy New Year and all that

So I haven't updated my blog in a while. Time to inform my vast worldwide audience of my highly interesting and entertaining life. (Mainly because it's Monday and I don't feel like doing any work.) So here's what's been happening:

I spent Christmas with my family in St. Louis. It was, actually, better than I thought it was going to be. My mother still wants to run my life, of course, but I've learned to tolerate it a lot better. I got a Garmin from them for Christmas. At first I thought it was just a gee-whiz kind of toy but now I'm actually really starting to like it. It is a Garmin Nuvi 260. The only complaint I have about it is that the maps are a little outdated. And I went to the Garmin website to see if there were newer versions and it claims that I have the latest maps. So that's weird. From my sister I got a painting that was painted by a parrot. As you might expect, it's really just streaks of paint on a white canvas. Apparently these "works of art" are highly sought after at the Houston Zoo. My sister seems to think that the animals enjoy it. She calls it "enrichment". I call it "exploitation". And I call the customers "stupid". While in St. Louis I also happened to stumble upon this website. Warning: turn down the sound before you click it, especially if you're at work.

New Year's for me was fairly sedate. I didn't go out and get blitzed or anything (but my neighbors sure did, let me tell you!). The Huskers won their bowl game on New Year's Day so they finish with a record of 9-4. This is impressive for Bo Pelini's first year as head coach and a vast improvement compared to last year's embarrassing 5-7 record. Now the Husker talk is of course focused on next year. (What, you thought Husker talk ended after the season? No way! This is Nebraska for God's sake!) There is a considerable amount of angst about next year's quarterback. Apparently there are 3 candidates for the job: a red-shirt freshman, a sophomore who's been injured, and some new highschool kid that just showed up. Everybody is just kinda crossing their fingers that somehow, everything will just all work out next year under the leadership of Our Coach and Savior Bo Pelini. We shall see.

My research is going fairly well. My current project is super-accurate calculations on tautomers of 4-pyrimidinone. It is more challenging than I thought but it is still accessible I think. I'm also now working on conformers of a mixed peroxide-ether cyclic compound. That is turning out to be a real pain. I've identified 90 possible "low-energy" ones so far, but this is before eliminating duplicates or energetically unstable ones.

I've also started to plan a road trip to the east coast for later this semester. I'm planning on attending CMU's Spring Carnival April 16-18, so along the way I thought I would visit an old friend at the University of Michigan as well as visit a friend in New York City afterwards. I've never been to New York or to UM so I'm eager to see both places. I'm also going to be attending the Spring National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt Lake City, March 22-26, 2009. Right now I'm scheduled to be there for the entire time since I have an exam committee meeting to attend at the beginning of the conference, and my oral presentation is scheduled for the very end of the conference. Hopefully I can get my presentation moved to an earlier time so I don't have to stay for so long. So I'm going to be doing a fair bit of traveling this spring semester.

Anyhoo, sorry for taking so long to update this thing. Drop me a line if you feel like it. Or not. Just don't spam me.

Birthday, Thanksgiving

So my birthday was Sunday. I am now 36. I don't feel that old at all. Didn't do anything special - watched the latest episode of 24. Thought it was pretty good.

The next day, I flew to Houston to spend Thanksgiving with my sister Kim and my parents, who drove down to Houston from St. Louis. I also finally got to meet Luis, Kim's boyfriend. Luis is certainly a nice guy and a nerd like me (he is a biostatistician). Sadly, however, I can't say it has been an altogether pleasant experience. My parents have spent most of their time obsessing at Kim's apartment. Consequently I have chosen not to spend a lot of time there. Kim is the child that they really wanted to have. Kim will call them multiple times a day, Kim will ask them for advice (and money), Kim lets my parents stay connected in her life. I don't. I talk to my parents maybe once a month, and then only when they call. I don't tell them the details of my life, because I know on some subconscious level that I can't. My mom has this annoying habit of wanting to solve everybody's problems. This wouldn't be so bad, but she combines this with an overinflated sense of correctness. So after she tells you how to solve your problem, she will then call back later asking how her solution worked out, assuming of course that you did it her way. When you have to explain, well, circumstances changed, and I didn't exactly do it your way, and, well, things are different now, she will want to know why you didn't call her back, or how come you didn't do it her way anyway. And I frankly don't want to explain every single decision in my life to her. So I simply don't let her get involved from the beginning. And talking to Dad is the same as talking to her. So conversations with them, in person, when I can't feign an excuse to end a phone call, are a challenge.



So, this afternoon is Thanksgiving dinner. I'm going to be thankful that it only happens once a year.

Sweet.

Good news. Gas here has fallen to $1.99/gal. Let's hear it for ethanol subsidies!

So Obama won.

Well that sucks. I was hoping McCain could pull it out at the end. But it was mere wishful thinking after all.

On the one hand, I think Obama is going to be a disaster for the economy. He will not hesitate to raise taxes and with the ultra-liberal Congress he's working with, the only question they will ask him is "how high do you want to go?" He wants to give "tax breaks" to people who don't pay taxes, which means eventually that we will have half the country who don't pay any taxes at all. That is not a sustainable democracy.

On the other hand, though, as others have pointed out, the situation right now is almost exactly what the situation was in 1992. And yeah it was a disaster for a while but the world didn't come to an end and it did pave the way for the eventual return of the Republican Party to control in Congress.

So I'm anxious about what Obama will do but I am also cautiously optimistic that through the current set of tribulations the Republican Party will rediscover its conservative soul.

Quick Update - The Corn Maze

So for Halloween this year I didn't go trick-or-treating but I thought I would try out the "world's largest corn maze" which is - you guessed it - right here in Nebraska, only about 15 miles from Lincoln. The bottom line is that I never want to experience any kind of maze, corn or otherwise, again. Here are a few pictures that perhaps illustrate why this is so.



First, there was the pumpkin launcher. Actually this did look like fun, but it was more for kids. Those rubber bands sure hurled those pumpkins a long way. Oh, and note the condition of the sky. It's close to dusk.



Here is the beginning of the corn maze.



Here is a view of the barn from inside the maze.



More corn. Hey look, it's getting a little darker.



Look, it's more corn!



Wouldn't you know it. More corn.



There's a &%$^&load of corn. And now it's almost completely dark and I have no flashlight.

After a while I latched on to some other people who did have flashlights and I just followed them out. Overall it took me about 1.5 hours to navigate the maze. The sign at the entrance said the estimated time of completion was 45-60 minutes. Yeah right.

These things are more for kids. And I am too old to deliberately try to get myself lost. I do that often enough with my own research projects!

Game Day - Pictures

Tailgaters play a little bean bag toss on the parking lot in front of the stadium.



The view of the stadium from the tailgaters' parking lot.



A bronze statue of Brook Berringer (No. 18) and Coach Tom Osborne. Berringer was a QB for the Huskers in 1996 who died tragically in a plane crash. Oh, also some random kid.



Garage rooftop tailgating.



There is a U.S. Senate race in Nebraska right now and the supporters for Johanns (R) and Kleeb (D) can be seen. They were the most polite supporters that I have ever seen.



A really big clock inside the stadium.



The view of the field from my seat. There's the Cornhusker Marching Band, "the pride of all Nebraska".



The Huskers running onto the field after the tunnel walk.



Huskers QB Joe Ganz, No. 12, warming up before the game, along with his media entourage. I've often wondered how college kids like him, who are also statewide celebrities, can focus on their education in the media frenzy atmosphere that they inhabit. Maybe, they don't.



Formation for the opening kickoff.



There's a tradition here that when the Huskers score their first touchdown, the fans release red balloons. There were a lot of balloons released.



Timeout!



A closer view of the new stadium skyboxes. I believe there is approximately a 200-year waiting list for the boxes.



There's Hamilton Hall, the chemistry building, as seen from the stadium. Rumor has it that once upon a time, chemistry grad students would sit on the roof of the building, drink beer and watch the game. Remarkably, this practice was deemed "unsafe" and the practice stopped (before my time, I might add). I can't imagine what could be unsafe about sitting on the top of a roof with no guard rails, getting drunk, in a building filled with hazardous chemicals. The nerve!



A key 3rd-and-short play for Baylor, late in the game. The Huskers defense would end up stopping the drive.



The gigantic "N" and "Nebraska" flags that would be run around the end zone after each Husker touchdown. This display came after the Huskers' last touchdown of the game.



The final score. The giant Jumbo-tron screen was, sadly, to my back so I didn't get to see it terribly often. If I go again I should want to find a seat at the opposite endzone.

Game Day - During and After

Well of course, being the idiot that I am, I dawdled too long in my office and was almost late getting to my seat for the kickoff. I just barely made it. And, being the bigger idiot, I didn't bring sunscreen or a hat, and it was a very sunny day. So my face is a little sunburned right now. All in all I would say that the experience was actually rather unpleasant. The seats consisted of numbers on metal benches; my seat was on the aisle, and the lady sitting next to me was, shall we say, quite "ample" so that meant I only really got half a seat. For much of the first half my body substantially obstructed the aisle, which was jostled whenever anyone went up or down the aisle (say, after touchdowns). And the bright sun didn't help either. The prices at the concession stands were of course outrageous ($3 hotdog, $4 ice cream, $3 soda).

Fortunately the Huskers won, but it was close for a while. They actually trailed at halftime but the defense really stepped up in the second half and shut out Baylor completely from scoring. I actually got to see the Huskers score a safety - a relatively rare thing for all of football. But there were tons of Huskers penalties during this game, just like with the Missouri game. That was a bit strange because I thought they had turned that problem around. It seems that the Huskers this year are exhibiting a "conservation of improvement" - when the defense improves, the offense backslides, and fumbles on 3rd and goal; when special teams steps up, the defense then allows an 80-yard pass play. All the parts are there, they are just not in a rhythm. Next week we play Oklahoma, which is a very good team but not unbeatable. There is some optimism that we can actually beat them this year, although I wouldn't bet any money on it. But even if we don't beat Oklahoma, there is considerable enthusiasm that we will actually make it to a bowl game this year, finishing with at least 6 wins. Right now the Huskers have 5 wins. After Oklahoma the Huskers play Kansas, Kansas State, and Colorado. Kansas will be a close game; Kansas State should be a sure win; and who knows about Colorado. It's a rivalry game, and at home. Colorado hasn't looked too good this year but with rivalry games you never can tell. So we may even have 7 wins this year.

But by far the coolest part of the game for me came even before the kickoff. I was in a narrow hallway waiting to get to my seat, with a crowd of other people, when the National Anthem started playing. People stopped moving forward, took off their hats and sang along. That is actually unusual nowadays! What's more, there was a guy in the back who I guess didn't know what was going on and was shouting towards the front "hey let's go" and so forth, noting that progess in the line had stopped. He was immediately shushed by the other fans, out of reverence for the National Anthem. It's instances like these that make me proud to be associated with Nebraska.

In my next post I'll have some pictures.

Game Day - The Pre-Game

So I'm here in my office, which is right across the parking lot from the stadium, about 2 hours before the game is set to start. I had to get here this early if I wanted any hope of finding free parking in a walkable distance. It is a bit cool outside, about 40 degrees, but it is supposed to warm up to about 60 for game time. You can definitely tell it's game day; the reds and whites are out everywhere. Not too many crazy drunk people stumbling around, but after all it is an early game so I suppose it's not too surprising. I haven't seen any Baylor fans yet (or at least, those who would self-identify as Baylor fans); maybe they are still cowering in their hotel rooms? :) The parking lot just east of the stadium is Tailgating Central so I will head out over there and take a few pictures.

Great News

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

The Presidential Debate

Speaking of the debate, I thought McCain did a very good job last night. I'm not sure why people thought Obama won it - he sounded more stridently liberal (e.g., class warfare rhetoric, "health insurance is a right", etc.) than in the previous debate. Like a lot of other people, I thought Brokaw did a terrible job; he turned it into a traditional debate instead of the more open format that was intended. My favorite part, though, was how McCain worked the rules. He seemed to get a disproportionate share of final answers to questions and he used those to take shots at Obama when Obama wasn't allowed, via the rules, to respond. And the one time when he did attempt to break the rules to respond to one of McCain's volleys, he was shouted down by Brokaw the Enforcer. Man I loved that part. For an old man, McCain's a clever guy.

And a lot of people are complaining that McCain didn't bring up Obama's connections with scurrilous folks like Ayers and Rezko. Actually I'm kinda glad that he didn't. That's not McCain's job. That the job of the right-wing blogosphere and punditry. And I think they are doing a pretty good job so far.

weight loss progress (or lack thereof)

Okay so my weight has remained more or less the same over the past month. I attribute this to a lack of consistency. I would sometimes stay within my calorie range and sometimes not; I would sometimes go to the gym and sometimes not. I've decided that this month I am going to focus on discipline. It matters less what I actually do (as long as it is helpful); it matters more that I do it regularly and consistently. So I've put off the weight lifting for now (because I don't actually like weight lifting) and I'm going to do only cardio, 6 days a week, in the mornings, without fail. And, I won't slack off on my other duties. I won't let my apartment get a messy wreck and then spend an entire day cleaning it; I will clean as I go. I won't let the dishes pile up in the sink. Etc.

But, then a further realization revealed that I've done this sort of thing before; I would make a commitment to do something, put my entire energy behind it, but then inevitably my will power would falter and I would slip back into the old ways. So this time I'm going to change things up a bit. I'm going to reward myself periodically for remaining disciplined. And, what better reward than beer! Lite beer, of course. And, only one mug. (Well maybe two.) And some associated keno. It won't be one big reward at the end for being successful, because I will never make it that far without some encouragement in the middle. So, twice a week or so I will treat myself in this way. One or two beers won't bust my budget or my diet and it will be something I can look forward to.

So far, so good. I did cheat a little bit today when I had a slice of pizza but I remained steadfast the rest of the time. And I had beer and keno last night after the presidential debate. This morning I weighed myself and I was at 231 lbs. So wish me luck. By the end of the month I hope to be below 230 lbs certainly, hopefully around 227-228 lbs or so.

More on Nebraska Gas

Here in Nebraska there is something weird. The price for mid-grade gasoline is actually less than the price for low-grade gas. The mid-grade gas has 10% ethanol and I believe that the price is due to ethanol subsidies. You see the same thing in Iowa. I've tried to find information on the Web to see how this came about but I've been unsuccessful so far, and I really don't want to wade through piles of legislative records. So, if you notice the price of liquor increasing in your area, you'll be happy to know that it's because I'm burning your alcohol in my car.

Wow

Wow, I didn't realize it had been a whole month already since I updated my blog. My apologies to my 2 blog readers.

Price of Gas

Hey guess what, today the price of gas here has fallen to below $3/gallon. I saw it at $2.99 and at $2.97. Good news indeed - I celebrate the price of gas that, just a mere 5 years ago would have seemed extortionate. Sure my retirement fund has been wiped out but I'm getting a great deal on gas!

Belated Blog Update #2: Weight Loss

So I have beem making a concerted effort to lose weight while I'm here. I hired a personal trainer, I have been studying nutrition, but most of all I feel like this is my last chance to lose the weight that I should lose. If I can't do it now when I have plenty of time to devote to the effort, then I'm probably never going to be able to do it.

Things started off well. I started at 236 lbs. and over the course of 4 weeks I was down to 232.5 lbs. Not dramatic, but definitely good. And then...I had a complete lapse of will yesterday. I had 3/4 of a large pepperoni pizza and I didn't go to the gym. This morning's weight? 236 lbs. I gained it all back in the course of one day. I can't tell you how disheartening this feels.

I guess the most enlightening aspect is the degree to which cheating will inhibit my progress. I can't really cheat at all and expect to get to the weight that I desire.

UPDATE: Okay so I just weighed myself right now, after eating breakfast and taking a shower, and now my scale says 235 lbs. Weird.

Belated Blog Update #1: Game Day

Wow. I am decidedly remiss in not updating this blog more frequently. So let me begin my update with the most anticipated day in all of Nebraska. No it's not Election Day or Groundhog Day, it's...

...the First Game Day of the Cornhuskers Football Season.

You had better believe that people around here were approaching Game Day with considerable enthusiasm. First, it's been a whole 9 months since the last Husker game. (No, make that 10. No bowl game last year...) Second, it's a brand new head coach. Bo Pelini. Actually he's not brand brand new, he was head coach for one game right after Frank Solich was fired in 2003. And it was a bowl game too. But then everybody knew it was just a temporary gig. Now he's the permanent guy. (Well, as permanent as these jobs are in college football.)

This town is nuts about Bo, especially since he is not the old guy. Bill Calla-something. I even forget now. This place is always nuts about football, but it is especially nuts about Bo. In fact you may even buy custom rocks showing your support for Bo. I can't seem to find an online picture of it, but there are posters around depicting Bo in a comic book superhero pose.

So you might say that a lot of the state's emotional energy invested in Bo.

For game day I decided to go to the local tavern, Fox's Sports Bar, and have a drink. I got there early and boy was I glad. Even 30 minutes before game time the place was packed. And this isn't a downtown bar either. Those places fill up by 9 AM. This place is way on the outskirts of town. At first I shared a table with this couple and then some spots opened up at the bar and we all moved there. We talked football a little bit, and then the bartender offered me, for the occasion...

...a Big Red Schooner of beer.

Why of course I jumped at the opportunity! Who doesn't want to drink a red beer, especially when you know it's not supposed to be red? Well behold, the Big Red Schooner!



This vessel holds approximately half a pitcher of beer. And I had two of them. (But during the course of the whole game.) However I requested that the second schooner not be red. For I had assumed that to make a Big Red Schooner of beer, the bartender would add red food coloring to the beer, like they do on St. Patrick's Day to make green beer. Well, no. You see, the substance that gives a Big Red Schooner its red color is...tomato juice. And I'm just not going to have another half-pitcher of tomato-juice-flavored beer.

And that was my experience on Opening Game Day 2008. I hope to actually go to a game, maybe in a few weeks' time.

Oh, and the Huskers won.

I'm angry at Wells Fargo.

Okay, so Wells Fargo is my bank and they've accumulated two strikes just in the past month.

Strike One: I walk into a branch to change my address. I dutifully approach the teller, who informs me that my request must be handled by a banker. Seems strange to me - I'm only changing my address, not really something for which a degree of finance is required. So I talk with a banker, who dutifully changes my address but then begins inquiring about the rest of my accounts. Am I happy with my checking? Wouldn't I want an upgraded account? My, there's a lot of money in my savings account. Would I be interested in CDs? Oh, and didn't I know that I could get text messages on my cell phone concerning bank transactions? Now I realize the reason why mundane address-change requests must be handled by bankers. Apparently, when I walk in the door, it's an opportunity for them to sell me something. I'm annoyed and a little offended that I can't walk into a branch office anymore without this level of hassle. I pledge to avoid walking into banks.

Strike Two: I search online at the Wells Fargo website, trying to find what the fee is for stopping payment on a check. (I think a check may have been lost in the mail.) I search everywhere and I can't find it so I call customer support. I have to ask the nice lady a couple of times because there's a bit of confusion - was this a payment made with their bill pay service or with a paper check? Because the fee for stopping payment on the online bill pay service is zero. However, she notices that my bill pay service "hasn't been activated yet". Quite frankly I was only vaguely aware that Wells Fargo offered online bill pay but I wasn't terribly interested - I can pay most of my bills online now anyway via the vendors' websites. So she looks up the fee (it's $29) and we bid each other good day. Well, lo and behold, about an hour later I get an email from Wells Fargo saying "Welcome to Bill Pay"! At first I thought maybe my account had been compromised but then I remembered my conversation from earlier - she probably "activated" this bill pay service without my permission. So I call back - at this time it's late in the afternoon, on a Friday - and I demand that this bill pay service be canceled. I don't care that it's free or whatever, I didn't ask for it so I want it turned off. The gentleman this time again asks about my savings account - wouldn't I want an upgraded savings account? I angrily answer "no". He cancels my bill pay but then transfers my call to an online banker who will discuss my savings account with me further. UGH. I am in no mood to discuss savings accounts right now but I talk with the banker. I don't change my savings account but I do go off on a tirade. I didn't ask for the online bill pay, it was wrong to sign me up for it without my permission, and would you be so kind as to carry this complaint to your superior? She meekly said that the call was recorded and the call hastily ended.

Afterward I felt a little bad on how I treated her, after all it wasn't her fault, but I was damn angry. I told her too that I was on the verge of changing banks, and I am. As far as I'm concerned, they've earned two strikes. One more strike and they're out. It makes me sad, too, because I've been a loyal customer of theirs for about 10 years now and up to this point I've been mostly satisfied with their service. But it's only been recently, I think, that they've adopted this business model where their object is to badger people into purchasing new financial products. Heck I might change banks anyway even if it doesn't take another "strike".