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!

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.

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.

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.

Steamers.

Yesterday, Becky and I walked down to Steamers for her birthday dinner. The restaurant looks like a Joe's Crab Shack, only not quite so tacky (although it's not from a lack of trying). They have a main dining area that is a big open patio that overlooks the Black Warrior River. The dining area is decent, but the restaurant is in a bad location along the river. The bridge over the river for the highway is a stone's throw away. It's a good effort to have river-front dining though.

The food at this place was not that impressive. I had blackened Mahi with rice, a baked potato, and cole slaw. The Mahi and the potato were pretty good. The rice wasn't cooked enough so it was still crunchy and the cole slaw was bland.

Overall, I'd say save your money. It's pretty pricey for what you get, a so-so meal with an ok view.

Absolutely Right.

Give this article a read.

Here in Tuscaloosa, there are almost no sidewalks in subdivisions. The places where you see the most people outside are along the river walk (where there is a path), the sidewalk around the Quad, and the Quad itself (big open field where people play football and frisbee). I definitely agree that if sidewalks were built in this city, people would use them. You can tell by the number of people crowding these areas in near desperation.

If they built bike paths, this town would go though a major change. I definitely think that a significant percentage of the population would use them. I think people are afraid to ride in traffic in this town, so the people that do ride are on the intermittent sidewalks, dodging pedestrians. If bike paths were built, this town could reduce it's traffic problem, the University could reduce it's parking problem, and people would be in better shape while saving money on gas. The town is not that big, after all. It's just poorly planned.