feliz navidad

Yuletide Greetings!

phd

So this long, arduous journey is finally over (well, practically). I passed my thesis defense today and had a nice get together at the Ath with an assortment of cool people. Small amounts of undue cruelty were had at the defense, but all-in-all it went well. My father and brother showed up to surprise me in the hallway of Bridge. Disneyland with them tomorrow. You can sleep when you’re dead.

GotR

Girls on the Run 5k at the Rose Bowl this morning – I was a running buddy volunteer and QJ teamed me up with a fifth-grade prodigy named Naeli. The gun went off and we got off to a conservative start. There were probably 20 or so pairs ahead of us for the first quarter mile. Then Naeli buckled down and we started rolling people up. The S.O. was running with another top contender and we quickly caught up with them. We talked the girls into running together before the race, so I slowed down to their pace. Naeli did not. I had no choice but to go after her, and we tore up the east side of the bowl. I asked her what her favorite subject in school was, and she said: “Well, sometimes we run at school”. Awesome. Halfway at the top of the bowl we had 100-150 yards on the field. On the downhill side, this older man with one of the GPS pace gadgets passed us and Naeli went after him. He said “Dude she’s running fast – like 7:15s”. The surge, while bold, came back to haunt us a little later when she said: “This is longer than I remember it”. I looked back and two other GotR pairs were now only like 70 yards back. I was trying to encourage naeli to just relax and prepare for a big finish. But the other girls kept closing. 50 yards…40 yards. We were approaching the final kilometer and I pointed out the finish. The Eye of the Tiger returned, and with her parents and dozens others yelling her on Naeli dropped the hammer. The yellow tape was in sight and I told her to sprint home, peeling off the course so she could have all the glory. She ended up running 28:07 for the ~3 mile run. Very impressive – I don’t think I could run that fast when I was her age. Second and third were 28:20 or so, with my S.O. and her girl taking bronze. Oh but it wasn’t a race of course. Fun times. I had to get back to the office soon afterwards. But if Naeli could rally and in that last mile, I can rally these last 48hrs and not keep falling asleep practicing this talk.

baiji

Almost done with the talk but motivation and energy levels are waning like the moon.

Way to go China! You guys suck.

thesis hell partially abated

I just gave the document to my committee. The last five or six days have been a nightmare. Defense in one week but I’m lacking the energy to start working on my talk. I keep falling asleep at my desk.

sic

Spell-checked the thesis using ispell in emacs (cool program). Apparently I don’t know how to spell “interstellar” or “accelerated”. Trying to get some comments back this morning, having it bound today, to the committee tomorrow.

Tiger 10k

I actually got to do something fun today, I mean besides staring at emacs for hours on end. The Tiger Run in South Pas was crawling with cool people like Morgan, ml, qj, Ranger McGrail, megumi, craub, shapiro. I got third in the 10k, some skinny dude from Vanguard beat me along with my traditional vanquisher Ranger. I thought I was catching the vanguard kid on the hills but he killed me on the last mile. The first 5k of the course is flast, the second 5k is ridiculous with two major climbs and out-of-control downhills. I ran a few seconds faster than last year so I guess it was a success. Also I got to test out my new racing shoes, the Vaporfly, and they were awesome.

UFO, Texas HS football

Looks like Hiker B., or the encore of the Tunguska Event, has visited Siberia.

God Bless those kids I’m sick I wanna throw up.

slog

one chapter to go, lay it down like sheet rock.