Now Accepting Bribes...

Our absentee ballots arrived today! I honestly thought that we would never see them. Tuscaloosa continues to surprise me.



I plan on voting soon and, in the spirit of the U.S. legislative process and the First Amendment, I will be accepting donations. The size of your donation will be directly proportional to the amount of consideration I will give your voting request. I will not place restrictions on the size of donations that I am willing to accept.

A Latitude Difference of 32 Degrees.

So, I'm listening to Morning Editon on Alabama Public Radio via the internet and they just said that it will be 97F and feel like 105F in Tuscaloosa today. I sure do miss hanging out at the pool on those super hot days.

The temperature here has maxed out at about 60F today and since summer is winding down, I doubt it'll get into the 70s again this year. Bummer.

The end of an era.

Today we have everything officially moved out of our office at school. We just have to come back tomorrow and turn in our keys!

The Home Stretch.

After taking a couple of days off from packing, I finally feel ready to get back to it. Today we are going to bring stuff from our office to the storage unit and continue packing stuff at home. We rented a 10' x 10' unit, but it still seems like it might be a tight squeeze.

What a Snoozer.

Albert Fert, winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics, gave a talk today on "The Present and Future of Spintronics." He is the second Nobel Prize winning physicist that has visited the Physics and Astronomy department since I've been in Tuscaloosa. Fert's talk went way beyond anything I understand about magnetic materials research (which is almost nothing) and he ended up losing me at the first slide. I thought that Fert's talk would be more general and that I would be able to follow it better, but that was not the case.

I really gave up on trying to understand anything in magnetic materials talks after my first year in grad. school. I went to a few of them, thinking that I would be able to pick something up, but I just don't have the necessary background to follow it I guess. Also, talk about the benefits of one thin film of material over a different thin film of material just isn't that interesting to me. Sorry Scott Brown. :)

Moving On.

Well, we officially have to move out of our Tuscaloosa apartment by May 31. We talked to the apartment manager and she let us out of our lease 1.5 months early without a penalty. That was really nice of her!

Done.

Check this out:


This means that I'm officially done and will graduate on December 15!

America's Least Green States.

I just read this article and it ranked the "green-ness" of all the US states. The five at the bottom of the list are:

• 45 - Kentucky
  
• 46 - Mississippi
  
• 47 - Louisiana
  
• 48 - Alabama
  
• 49 - Indiana
  
• 50 - West Virginia
  

They are at the bottom of the list because they "all suffer from a mix of toxic waste, lots of pollution and consumption, and no clear plans to do anything about it." At the top of the list are:

• 1 - Vermont
  
• 2 - Oregon
  
• 3 - Washington
  
• 4 - Hawaii
  
• 5 - Maryland
  

Michigan is near the middle at number 24. Why are Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana always at the bottom of every list? Do the people of these states just not care about anything?

Some People Are Just No Good At Problem Solving.

Today is the big LSU vs. Alabama football game in Tuscaloosa. I rode my bike through the chaos on campus so that I could workout at the student recreation center. It was utter madness. When I finally made it back home, I was about to put my key in the door when a girl dressed in Sunday-best asked if I would help her boyfriend put a keg in the back of their Jeep Wrangler so they can go tailgating. After riding up a very steep hill to get to my apartment, all I managed to get out was, "*huff* Sure. *puff* Let *huff* me *huff* just *puff* put *huff* my *puff* bike *puff* away."

I came back out of my apartment and proceeded to help the boyfriend, also dressed in his Sunday-best, put the keg in the Jeep. Their first idea was to put the keg (which weighs 160.5 pounds according to Wikipedia) in their Rubbermaid trashcan and then carry it out to the car. I suggested that we roll the keg to the car instead of carrying it. I was then told that "that's a good idea." It sounded like common sense to me. Once we made it to the car, the girl said that she wanted to put the keg standing up in the trashcan and suggested that we put it in and then lift it into the back of the Jeep. I then suggested that we put the trashcan in the car on its side, lift the keg sideways and slide it into the trashcan, then tilt the trashcan with the keg in it so that it's vertacle. They were both amazed at that idea. Again, I thought it was just common sense.

Both of these people are students here and they are a good example of the average student body.

The Job Search Begins.

I finally submitted my last two papers for publication and my dissertation is submitted to the graduate school. That means all that is left to do is actually look for a job!

Reformat?!

I'm currently reformatting my entire dissertation so that it will conform to what the Graduate School wants. What a pain in the @$$!

Doctor.

I passed my dissertation defense yesterday! Woo Hoo!

Cat Pictures.

Here's Skunk sitting on my keyboard cover.

Here's Skunk lounging in her window hammock.



Here's Skunk lying on the grass we grow for her to eat so that she doesn't chew on the house plants.

James Herbert Martin

It took me a while to post this, but I'm glad I finally did. About a month ago James Herbert Martin passed away here in Tuscaloosa. Becky knew him better than I did. He was the Tai Chi teacher at Yoga Bliss Studio. I had only met him twice, but he was a very nice guy and I'm happy to have known him. The following are scans of the flyers handed out at his funeral.

Leprechauns and Whistle Tips.

"It looks like someone got a really good look at it and got that good drawing of it."


I love this video. Especially when Bubb Rubb peels out of the repair shop, almost hits a parked car, and blows through a stop sign.

The Birmingham International Auto Show.

Yesterday, Becky and I went to the Birmingham International Auto Show. I've been to the one in Detroit and the Birmingham version is minuscule in comparison. It's still pretty neat though. The concept cars are always fun to look at and since there are far fewer people at the Birmingham Auto Show, you don't have to wait long to sit in the car of your choice. When I used to go to the show in Detroit, my friends and I would have a contest to see who could be the first to find the car where they forgot to disable the horn (there always seemed to be at least one). There always seems to be one at the Birmingham show as well. Becky frowns upon that little ritual, so I didn't try to hard to find it, though I did hear the horn from time to time. Also, Becky ended up "winning" a Nalgene-style bottle from the people in the Suzuki area. She was pretty happy about that.

Here are some pictures from our day.

This is a Chevy concept car.

Becky is testing out the seat in a Mitsubishi.


ALWAYS keep your eyes on the road, even when dealing with paparazzi.


Ever since I was a kid, I've always wondered why no one ever made a car entirely out of chrome, since people like it so much. Well, this it what it would look like.

That kid holding onto the chain is as shocked as I was that someone finally decided to make an all chrome car.

This looks like a concept car, but the sticker in the windshield means it isn't.




That was the leather seat, I swear.

...or was it?


The coolest dune buggy I've seen so far.

What A Day.

Man, I woke up this morning and it felt a little like Christmas. I finished another draft of a paper that I'm going to try to get published. I finished it last night and sent it to my adviser to read over. That lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and I slept pretty good last night. Then, this morning, I turn on the news and hear that the Democrats have taken the House and could take the Senate as well. Wow. Let's see if they actually make some worthwhile changes. To top it all off though, Donald Rumsfeld is quitting! It's about friggin' time. I hope his replacement is at least slightly better.

Better than all that though, it's currently sunny and 65 degrees here. Nice.

Did You?

By the way, Election Day is probably one of the most important days in the U.S., so why don't we get this day off? How many people (and what demographic) can afford to take off on a Tuesday?

Where Do You Want To Live?

According to this list, 61% of the cities on the list are safer than Tuscaloosa. This place has about the same number of people as Sterling Heights, MI (my hometown). Only 4% of cities on the list are safer than Sterling Heights and it's a suburb of Detroit (99.7% of cities are safer). All of the largest cities in Alabama are pretty high on the list. The safest city in Alabama is Tuscaloosa and the most dangerous is Birmingham where 98.7% of cities on the list are safer.

Last Night.

There really aren't a lot of cool things that happen in Alabama, so when something comes around you have to jump at the opportunity. Good bands hardly ever come to this state. There might be someone worth seeing once or twice a year, while they are on their way to Atlanta. Last summer this state was lucky enough to host 311, Papa Roach, and Unwritten Law. Becky and I went to that concert and it ROCKED! I don't know if it's because I haven't been to a concert in a very long time, or if they really were that good.

Anyway, one of the few worthwhile performances in this state happened last night and Becky and I were lucky to get tickets to it. We tried months ago but it was already sold out. Yesterday afternoon I figured I would just check again. I really don't know why. It seems that they opened up some extra seats and we managed to get the last two of them together.

So, who did we see? Who was willing to come to this lame-ass state and entertain the minority of the population? One of my favorite comedians, Lewis Black!

This is probably the best picture of me ever taken.


My autographed ticket. John Bowman was the opening act. He's the guy on the left in the above picture. He was pretty funny, but definitely not as good as Lewis Black.