It was a good trip; my 10 year HS reunion was actually fun. I had a subdued birthday, hung out with my family, saw the fake Alamo, did some hiking in near 100 degree weather, went to Austin and had fun relaxing.

I also went to the 'Plasma Processing Science' Gordon Conference at Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts the 3rd week of July. It was pretty cool; learned some stuff, met some folks, talked about science, etc.

Anyway, it's back to work tomorrow, so I'm going to resume watching the last day of X-Games 14 and enjoy the rest of my weekend. Later.

In other news, just chilling out, enjoying the summer and trying to keep things on track at work. Got quite a few conferences coming up very soon, so we're hoping that our latest simulations do what we designed them to do.

I'll still be updating my 'Sights' page, but likely most posted galleries will be linked to my flickr account.

Hope everyone is having a pleasant June.

We just got back from Yosemite yesterday; I have a ton of things to post from that as well.... Chances are very good I'll be getting a Pro account on Flickr as I'm just too busy lately to really devote as much time to generating these photo galleries oldschool style; while the PERL scripts I wrote/use are very helpful, I still a have to do a lot of photo prep work that I think Flickr will speed up...so I will definitely keep you posted when that happens.

In other news, my laptop died tonight... apparently the motherboard is dead, or at least the phone tech thinks so after 1:15 of pointless troubleshooting... at least I agree with the assessment; It's my work machine, so we have the Dell super warranty... hopefully all will be fixed in the next day or so.

On another note, just growing older as usual. Work is fine. Re-evaluating personal life goals, etc. Tedious, boring discussions with self; realize I should probably start writing again to vent stress and anxiety.

Anyway, still tired from hiking for 4.5 days straight. Going to bed now.

My new camera should finally be here tomorrow, so I will have to post new photos soon. Plus, Jeff and Marie are getting married this weekend, so I'm sure there will be pictures from that....

...and we're planning on camping in Yosemite next week...

One highlight from yesterday is that we went down to Navy Pier and found the new Bob Newhart statue (click for larger images):

Well, I will report back later with more info.

So, what's been up?... uh.... working a lot, I guess.... Trying to publish things and such;running simulations and debugging things. Making neat research movies.

I got some sweet discounting at Circuit City on my wireless Rock Band guitar, thanks to their 'get a $24 gift card if we don't have your order ready for pickup in 24 minutes' deal and their general ineptitude.

I guess I'm about to order Grand Theft Auto IV....so that should be neat. I've been backlogged on games, though; I'm finally on the verge of finishing the expansion pack for Titan Quest. I have 2 yet-to-be-installed expansions for HOMMV sitting on my floor, and I still haven't quite hit the 'my-god-this-is-so-boring-and-repetitive' wall in Assassin's Creed on 360, so you know.... I have other stuff to play.

The difficulties here are compounded by our house's recent acquisition of a Tivo, so I also spend more time watching TV and then just going to bed during the week now than I once could in my youth. Apparently sleep is important to you know... working...in the brain...

Yeah. So...yeah... more to report later.

In other news, we're technically on spring break this week. So it's a nice week to work without any undergrads being on campus. Or at the gym. Good times.

Other things have been going well. We've gotten into full-swing mode with D&D, but we're having fun, and I think I'm beginning to be able to manage my free time more effectively as of late. Still trying to reserve time for reading and playing video games and cooking, etc.

On the TV front... we dropped Comcast digital cable. We're finally free of the shackles of their horrible, horrible DVR. We need a new DVR now, though, even though we're down to 35 channels....Fortunately, everything I want to see on cable is pretty much streamed free online right after the shows air, so all is well....the season finale of Frisky Dingo was on last night.... man, I love that show. The Season 1 DVD is on its way.

At any rate. I will keep you posted of other spring-time highlights as they arise. Later.