A Weblog

I started out today a little earlier than I had anticipated. Of course, Maura had emailed to confirm our meeting time, but somehow 10:30 am has the ability to sneeks up on a person — especially if that person had accidentally stayed up until 4 am. The night before really started off sometime in the mid-afternoon.

Michelle called to say she was on errand in the Square. Tracy had called moments before, and I told them both that Abby got first priority, as she may’ve been moving to her new appartment and I had offered to help. She, however, was too tired to bother leaving me to meet with the sisters Dionne in Davis.

I focused mainly on notational and layout design problems seiging my thesis; the theory of connections in an appendix on the geometry of principal bundles got some attention, too, but mostly Tracy and I listened to music while what appeared to be alumni members of a college anime society gathered in the back of the cafe.

By the time we finished deliberations and started to leave, my father called me to say he was in the area, ready to take the keys from the Stratus away. Indeed, the engine had seized. The oil intake pump did not take in a sufficient amount of oil, and, despite little warning from the instrument panel, the piston’s metal-on-metal interaction heated up the cars internals until they melted together. The entire process gave us cause to donate the car that once was to Special Olympics as scrap metal. My dad needed the keys, I suppose, to deactivate the LoJack, or, perhaps, he needed them simply for closure. Whatever the reason, I handed them over. He handed me a CD with pictures taken at the air show. To the left you can see a characteristic sample.

The three of us, Tracy, my dad, and I, respected tradition by dining at Boca Grande — the only restaurant my dad knows by name in Cambridge.

Afterward, it was anyone’s guess as to what I’d be doing or where. DJ had promised to come up to watch the game with me at a bar to be determined, but it had rained all day and his car isn’t well equipped to drive even in most climates, let alone mildly inhospitable ones. Tracy reminded me that I had not seen her new appartment nor had I met her 53″ wide-screen, high definition television.

So it was off to Watertown to see the TV and play with the cats and the rats. The academic year before last my U-mates and I babysat Tracy’s hermaphradite Siamese pure-bred Sky(e) — I don’t remember the correct spelling. Tracy, Sky(e), to you I acknowledge my gross insensitivity and send my deepest apologies — until she found an appartment that would allow the both of them. Since then she had been forced out of that appartment by water damage incurred by a fire in the appartment directly upstairs and moved to a much nicer place near Mount Auburn Cemetery, replete with its scenic and historic graves and prehistorically large slugs.

We watched the Sox versus Tampa Bay, flicking back and forth between some Chapel stand-up during the commercial breaks.

Inertia, as anyone will tell you, is a powerful force. Not wanting to walk all the way downstairs to wait for the bus, I decided to stay a bit longer, play with Castor, a rat Tracy is babysitting — sadly, his friend, Pollux, died some time ago — and watch bootleg DVDs of The State, a sketch comedy show first on MTV and then CBS from the mid-90s. Two full DVDs later, the bus had stopped running and it was time to walk home. A few hours later it was time to meet with Sullivan to discuss the grave matter of decimal representation. I think we both suffered ever so slightly.

Afterward, I napped until work at 3 pm, staying until 6 pm. Oh the life of a student worker! By this time I was long overdue for a meal. Uno’s, I recalled correctly, runs an all-you-can-eat special for only eight bucks on Tuesdays. So, I stolled to the Square, walked passed Uno’s, and pointedly entered The Coop to see if they carried a copy of Lisa Randall’s new book Warped Passages. (Prof. Randall has, by the way, updated her photo on the faculty website since the release of her book. I showed Paul the new picture; we agreed it was nice. I would comment further, but I think it would be unprofessional of me, and, as Susannah proved to me recently, I have no way of knowing who reads this thing. That’s the point, I suppose.) They did. I knew it was either a new, casual physics text or dinner for two days.

I am happy to annouce both that I am a full three chatpers in and that Sox won again tonight.

Tomorrow I must wake up even earlier; this time to babysit Robert, a “fiesty and ubiquitous” five year old, son to our resident dean. (Properly speaking, Catherine is our Allston Burr Senior Tutor, but who’s that proper these days?)

Maybe Robert will walk away knowing a little something about splitting exact sequences, and I’ll walk away with money enough for dinner all this week.

The weather is changing. The atmosphere, like all other fluids, resists change. Being constituent parts of this atmosphere, I’m willing to bet we resist it, too. Everyone acts just a little slower nowadays.

Yesterday was a lazy, lazy day. John and Abby and I went over Paul’s, as it was Monday and that’s what we do on Monday’s. Ellen cooked up this pasta sauce from scratch. She won’t mind my giving out the recipe, I’m sure. She gave it freely to me.

Heat up some oil in a pan. Throw in five to seven finely chopped cloves of garlic. Stir in twenty (small; gosh, I’m not good with produce. In an emergency I couldn’t tell a stalk of celery from a leek.) sliced tomatoes. Let them cook until everything is the right consistancy. Add some fresh basil — they have a plant in their kitchen; Abby has one in her single room appartment on the eleventh floor with no access to a kitchen, but she has the plant nonetheless. Join with pasta and serve.

Before dinner Abby and Jon and I slouched into position in the living room. Abby took charge of feeding Gracie, who is now nearly six months old and has the staying and jumping power of an olympian, while Jon closed his eyes a while on the couch. Alice joined him; he was in her customary napping spot, after all. Between the hardwood floor inside and soft falling rain outside, it was a lazy, lazy day.

I had a vodka martini on the rocks. Then I had a margarita. Jon had moved to the kitchen to chat with Ellen, while Paul and Abby and I contemplated a mint julep. A friend, the same who had supplied them with the basil plant, had also given Paul and Ellen more than a few sprigs of fresh mint. Without an apparent use, the mint, we thought, might be wasted. But without knowing just what goes in the julep part of a mint julep we were lost. Luckily JC, who lives just downstairs, was a bartender who had made a few juleps, mint or not, in the past.

Paul returned with a bottle of soda water. It was the only ingredient we had reasoned must be in the mix. Keeping with the culinary theme of this post, a mint julep consists of crushed mint, sugar water (think simple syrup), soda water, bourbon, and ice (which serves to keep the mint from floating to the top. This, as we found, is crucial).

Abby and Paul disappeared into the kitchen after dinner to prepare drinks. Eye-balling the ratios and completely neglecting the soda water, Paul emerged with three glasses. One for me. And two for Abby, Jon, Paul, and Ellen. Grace, being too young, had been put to bed upstairs. I finished my drink on priciple but too slowly. Everyone else had given up and put theirs in the kitchen. I took mine to go in a steel Harvard Summer School complimentary mug. Paul generously poured what remained of the other two in with mine. I sipped the entire ride home.

But the night was not over. Abby came over. Having recovered from her Southern sweet tea, we cracked open a bottle of riesling I had in the fridge and read livejournals until we were out. “I have some beer upstairs,” Abby offered. God, I love her. Smart, beautiful, and generous. I expect good things for her.

We retired the wine glasses and broke out the pilsners and poured. By this time, we were a little hungry. Uno’s Pizzeria has half-priced apps from 10 pm until closing Sunday through Friday. There was no question about where we should go. Another 22 ounces of beer and an order of Tuscanny bread and boneless buffalo wings later, it was closing time. And Lisa, a regular, had passed out in a stall in the bathroom. This left Kimberly, one of the watiresses, quite unnerved. Abby did what she could; it was she who had discovered Lisa in the first place, and we left. By three o’clock, it was time for bed. I bid Abby adieu and now it’s a full twelve hours later.

I’m off to meet the sisters Dionne to study at Diesel Cafe in Davis. November isn’t getting any further away, you know. The tip of one of the trees outside my window has already begun to turn and the color is spreading.

Cockroaches, well, at least one cockroach has penetrated my defenses and found its way up to the ninth floor and into my room. He keep bouncing from wall to wall without cause or warning. Right now it’s war. I don’t want to kill; I just don’t want a roommate who isn’t Anthony; I’m sure this guy’s name isn’t Anthony, and he sure as hell isn’t from Gardner.

It looks as though not-Anthony has slipped through my ingenious two cup trap. I’m not sure where he is, but I can’t be bothered. Hopefully I won’t have any strange, insect bedfellows tonight.

I just emailed Clifford Johnson, a professor at USC who specializes in string theory and gravity. More importantly he is one of the permanent bloggers at Cosmic Variance. Recently he recounted a story from his advisor at the University of Southampton. So, I started thinking, hey! that probably means Clifford, who teaches in the States, probably got his degree in England.

Previously I had had some reservations about postgraduate degrees from abroad. But I had also had the feeling that most of the big general relativity things happen in England. After all, it’s tradition.

Sir Arthur Eddington, a pacifist, quaker, humanitarian, and Chief Astronomer at the Observatory of Cambridge University, single-handedly brought Einstein’s relativity to the Allied World — proving that science transcends political boundaries even in a time of war. Anyway, it was Eddington who made Einstein famous. He not only understood and explained the theory — which, at the time, was a remarkable feat in and of itself — he also gathered the money and manpower to execute two expeditions to put GR to its first experimental test. Eddington himself led the team in South America, while another headed to Africa, both to observe the bending of light by the sun during a solar eclipse.

The rest, as they say, is history. England has continued to produce excellent relativists, and not just in the philosophical sense. Hawking and Penrose are, perhaps, the most famous. But there are also Gibbons, d’Inverno, Tod, Geroch, and so many more!

After reading Clifford’s post, I decided to email him about his Southampton experience. Minutes later I received a response.

Add Warwick, Durham, and Southampton to my English school list.

As promised, here are the rules to the Energy Game. While it looks complicated, it’s not. The entire time keep Rock, Paper, Scissors in mind and things will work out just fine.

Rounds
This is a two-person, multi-round game. During each round you can perform one move. Rounds are separted by the chant “One. Two. Three.” Each player chants before declaring his move while bumping both hands in a fist as you might during Rock, Paper, Scissors. Each move has an associated hand gesture. To complete a move, a player must vocally declare hsi move and execute the associated hand gesture to signify his move. The following is an example of what one player might say for two rounds’ worth of moves:

One. Two. Three. Energy! (first round.)
One. Two. Three. Block! (second round.)

Offensive Moves
There are three types of offensive moves. They are Punch, Double-punch, and Super Destructo. Each offensive move costs points from your energy bank (to be discussed below).

A single Punch costs one energy point; a Double-punch, two; and Super Destructo, three. A Punch beats Energy. A Double-punch beats a single Punch. Super Destructo, being an unblockable, defeats everything (including block).

The corresponding hand gestures are:
Punch, one fist forward,
Double-punch, two fists forward,
Super Destructo, lasso motion over the player’s head.

Defensive Moves
The only defensive move in the game is called Block. When calling Block, a player must form a cross with his arms. A Block successfully counters a Punch or Double Punch. It had no effect on Energy. A Super Destructo beats a Block. A player may block at any time. It neither costs or gains the player Energy.

Energy
In order to play any of the offensive moves, a player must first have the requisite amount of Energy in his Energy Bank. To place a unit of Energy in the Energy Bank, a player must call Energy! as his move. Be wary, however, as this is the only time when a player is vulnerable to a normal attack. To play Energy, a player calls out Energy! accompanied with a single double-fist hand pump.

Example Game 1
One. Two. Three. (1) Energy! (2) Energy!
One. Two. Three. (1) Energy! (2) Punch!
Player Two wins.

Example Game 1
One. Two. Three. (1) Energy! (2) Energy!
One. Two. Three. (1) Energy! (2) Block!
One. Two. Three. (1) Punch! &nbsp(2) Block!
One. Two. Three. (1) Punch! &nbsp(2) Energy!
Player One wins.

I hope this adequately explains the Energy Game. Go out and play it now! It’s a great energizer, spectator sport, ice breaker, and parent. Do it up, yo.

Disclaimer: No, I have not forgot about the Energy Game follow-up post. Rest assured, dear reader, that it is on its way, as surely as I am on mine.

If you look for me right now, you’ll have to look hard. My family and I have run away to western Massachusetts. For the second time in as many days, I’ve hopped on the Pike to exit 4: West Springfield/Holyoke. In just a minutes, I’ll be on the Barnes Municipal Airport tarmac, which may or may not be in Westfield, MA. Luckily, I do not have to drive. Indeed, I cannot. However, that wasn’t always so.

Yesterday, I was scheduled to taxi my sister and her boyfriend Jon from Cambridge to rendezvous with my father in Westboro before departing for the far reaches of the world. And so, we tried. Shortly after the second toll booth, the Stratus did something it has never done before. It stopped. Dead. In the middle of the highway.

I have often seen those cars, lonely, flashing, and dangerous, and looked on with a certain amount of secret envy. Once before, after high school cross-country practice, Heather Petitpas’ car stopped in Holbrook square at a stop light. She had to slip the car into neutral and I pushed it to the curb. Exciting though that was, it was merely a stepping stone, and I had to conquer the Pike.

The Stratus couldn’t've executed the breakdown better. The engine seized. I immediately hit the hazards in response. Neither Jon nor Janice were fairly silent. One of them may have uttered a “Whoa.” But if he did, I can’t really remember. Next I tried to restart the car, but the engine wouldn’t turn over. We couldn’t mess around any more; it was time to call in the authories — it was time to call my dad.

Technology has made the world a much smaller place. Now I can leave a voice message for anyone, anywhere, no matter the circumstances. After a matter-of-fact “Dad, I think I’m going to be late; we just broke down on the Pike and we’re stuck in the middle of it. Please call me back,” it was time to ask the Stratus to start up just one last time. This time she did. It was like driving through chunky peanut butter, but we managed to the side of the road. Rather than a paved emergency lane, we checked onto the compacted earth immediately to the left of the four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. The cars seemed to pick up pace as soon as we safely pulled over. For breakdown, it was fairly scenic. Six-foot tall willows-of-the-wisp formed a barrier between the Pike and the outside world much like a reverse moat fencing out civilization.

By this time, Dad called me back to tell me to do all that I could do — to call someone else while we waited for him. Since my accident last spring, I felt confident in my ability to navigate the AAA automated, road-side assistance service menus. They dispatched a tow truck. It came, its driver checked my oil. He was short, gruff, and unwilling to bring us to Randolph. His shift was to end in an hour, he told us, and he had no time for us.

Twenty minutes later, a luxury tow truck rescued us. Meanwhile, my father had driven by and was presently negotiating an in Pike U-turn but with little success. I waived him on. We planned to reconvene in Randolph. The flow of cars allowed our passage to the South Shore in a safe and timely manner, despite my directions. The driver was nice; he offered minimal though friendly chit-chat. At about the same time on the same day one week earlier, he said, a man in his early sixties bounced from one jersey barrier clear four lanes over to the outside shoulder. The cops met him and called our driver to take the man and what was left of his car away. Incidentally, this man was drunk. Stinking drunk. Our driver couldn’t seem to stress that enough. To add that twist that every good story needs, our driver added, in shock, that this man was a professor at Bentley College. The cops didn’t touch him because they “didn’t want to deal with the paperwork.” If it had been you or me, our driver continued, we would’ve been locked up. I’m certain that he is right.

But eventually we got going. I started this entry from within my hotel room in Holyoke. I marvel that anyone ever populated this place. Verily, not many have. The rolling, high hills and dense tree cover speak to the sparse population and large town boundaries of western Massachusetts. Yet, as I have remarked before, the internet is everywhere. Our Holiday Inn features all the amenities of the modern world: an in-ground pool, bar and lounge, arcade, high-speed wireless internet, cable television, and an in-house Friendly’s.

Founded in Wilbraham, Friendly’s is nearly as numerous here as Starbucks is in the Square. After normalizing the stats by restaurant per area, perhaps Friendly’s wins out. My powers of estimation have never been that good.

Our Friendly’s looks like many in the Metro-area, but here the Chilis-meets-the-Christmastree-Shoppe decor works. And the farm fresh eggs make a difference. Over all, it was simply less depressing than the one’s closer to home. My bet is on the carpet. Fabric makes everything more comfortable.

After breakfast, we stopped one exit west. The gates opened at 8 am. We were here at about 8:15 am. It is now 5:27 am as I write from the backseat of my father’s Prius. Rumor has it that we’ll visit the next exit to the west on the Pike, bringing us to Exit 2. The power of portable technology.

I’ll try to post some of the pictures I took with my sister’s camera. In the meantime, we just awarded Jon the uncontested winner in the who-got-burnt-the-worst game. Goodbye, from Stockbridge. It’s nearly time for Italian, Berkshire style.

Never before had I felt so much a part of the commun community that is humanity. Okay, so perhaps that’s something over an overstatement. But last night, while waiting in line for our turn on Mr. Six’s Pandemonium, one of the new roller coasters at Six Flags, New England, something special happened.

Directly in front of us in line was a group of family and friends, the youngest member of which was a small girl. She noticed a pair of older girls one length of the space-filling curve shaped line ahead of us playing one of those hand-clapping playground games. Something like Miss Mary Mack or Miss Suzy, but not quite because they weren’t singing. This inspired the girl, who played with one of the women in her group. Eventually she grew tired of clapping, or maybe the woman did, and the girl moved onto an improvised bout of limbo.

Meanwhile, Mary and I were getting a little bored ourselves. And Michelle was downright fiesty. So, it was time to introduce the Energy Game.

A more dynamic, generalized version of Rock, Paper, Scissors, the Enregy Game is a two-person, zero-sum game. Mick Bordano taught me. His friend from home taught him. Before that I cannot trace its origins. For those of you who know Bond, this is similar. And for those of you who have heard Mick and my playing at 2 am in the dining hall, here’s your chance to learn and participate.

[Rules to follow in the next post.]

The Energy Game has always been something of a spectators’ sport. This time was no exception. Even though she had never played before, Mary is good. Really good. Our games lasted about a dozen moves sometimes. And twelve moves in the Energy Game is as close to eternity as it gets.

By this stage in our game-playing development, the group directly in front of us, the one with the clapping-limboing girl, had really got into it. One. Two. Three. Double punch! That’s right. They cheered!

A group of two boys and a girl, who looked to be about sixteen or so, started in. I taught one of the boys how to play, but he was a bit shakey on the rules. They cheered from time to time nonetheless.

Especially popular, at least in my mind, was the Super Destructo.

It is my hope that someday I learn the Energy Game from someone else as a result of last night. Like pay it forward, but without that horrible Hailey Joel Osmand boy.

Indeed, I know the zipcode for Agawam, MA, off the top of my head, even at 9:04 am.

In an attempt to better myself as a person, I’ve decided to join Red Sox Nation. And there was no better day than yesterday. They were playing, after all. That’s convenient, right? Mary and Michelle found me by telephone, and we decided to try out Boston Beer Works on my suggestion. Their nut brown wasn’t bad; their ESB, nothing to write home about; their stout is nitrogenated. Creamy and dark, tastes like it was shipped over from Ireland in a can.

To celebrate summer, they offered two fruit beers: one was a blonde served with a wedge of watermelon, which to me smelled and tasted like that watermelon soda they’d serve at end-of-the-year little league soccer parties. I think I read that they put watermelon syrup in the beer, as well. The blueberry beer had, as advertised, blueberries and syrup in it, too. The carbonation caused the berries to take turns rising and falling to the top and bottom of the glass, respectively. The beer reminded me of that fizzy-pop drink Orbitz, which Rosie O’Donnell used to endorse so hard. Both beers are in strict violation of Yale Beer Society (YBS) Constitution, Article III, Subarticle A, paragraph (b). The language is a bit abstruse, so I’ll paraphrase: No fruit beers allowed.

Meanwhile the Sox won.

Michelle was identified by a waiter boy as being from Waterville, ME. He refused to give up his name, though, offering, instead, something of an Egyptian riddle. “I was in the grade below you; my brother was in the grade above you. My family is Italian. Who am I?” Diophantus’ questions weren’t nearly as difficult. And that’s probably why Michelle failed, and embarrassingly so.

By this time — and for those of you there, you’ll note that inverted the chronology of events — they kicked us out. So we went home.

But when I got to my door, I reached for my keys only to find the alarm to my car. Time to call Ian. Thankfully, he had just got back in town a day earlier. And lo! he replaced his phone. But no! he wasn’t picking up. I stumbled over to his appartment, lay on the buzzer, and called once more. He answered.

I apologized, though I was more relieved to be saved from the streets than not.

Before collapsing on the couch, I filled two glasses from the kitchen with water, placed one contact lens in each of glass, and set both on the bathroom sink.

During the night I dreamt I was a human-rabbit-type character who was pursued by an Elmer Fudd-like character, except he had vicious but dumb, black hunting dogs. I had incredible speed and staying power. And I wasn’t too bad at swimming, either. My brown courdoroy jacket restricted my ability to climb over things quickly. Sometime during the dream it was important that 5 and 8 are related in that 2+3 equals 5, while 2 cubed is 8. This is a fact that I have related in waking hours, as well. As far as I know this relation is a coincidence rather than a deep fact.

Initially, I woke up at 12:32 pm. However, I noticed that 12:32 is not a palindrome and, thus, decided to sleep in further. Before falling asleep, I did note to myself that 12:32 is only 11 minutes different from a palindrome, and that 11 is itself a palindrome. This second coincidence was not enough to keep me awake. I next woke at 1:40 pm to Tracy’s phone call.

After adjusting, confused by my environs, I wandered to the bathroom for my contacts. Sadly, someone had emptied the glass with my left lens, assuming the coordination of the cups was maintained throughout my sleep. I dumped out the other glass for the sake of symmetry.

I am not safely and seeingly, in my room, showered and clothed. The Sox are still away and it’s my mother’s birthday. I think I’ll take tonight off in her honor.

While on the road today, a new item caught my attention. Connecticut is the first state to sue the federal government because of the No Child Left Behind Act. Now way back last winter, we debated the distinct disadvantages the new legislation would force on every student attending a publically funded school in the country. The blind focus on some ill-defined and ill-chosen term “literacy” robs the student of crucial skills — those, for instance, associated to physical health and emotional development which are vital for mastery over the soi disant literacy — indeed, the arbitrary and incomensurate resultant metrics the legislation imposes on each state provide a diagnosis that is expensive and after the fact. If a doctor waited for a man to die of cancer as proof of disease before perscribing treatment, he’d lose his license. Yet this is exactly the same approach NCLB legislation takes on education. Even then, the goverment doesn’t provide medicine to under-performing school districts. Instead, NCLB severely penalizes them.

These claims, I admit, aren’t substantiated, and I don’t plan to doing that here. Instead, I want to talk about just a few of the fiscally irresponsible acts associated with NCLB. As documented in the statement of the lawsuit, the USDOE has refused requests from the Connecticut to waive, for example, universal and immediate testing of students in English as a second language programs. In the past, the state gave ESL students exemption for three academic years (or thirty calendar months) in order to, and this is silly, learn English. To wit, even the math exams require English proficiency, as some of the questions are dreadful word problems — which, I take issue with, but, again, not here — and open ended problems — which, aren’t really a special type of a problem. When I tutor Sullivan, for example, I am careful to ask for an explanation and interpretation of his answer. Unfortunately, this sort of inquiry is usually completely overlooked until college mathematics, and even then, isn’t met until somewhere beyond the freshmen curriculum. As far as I can tell, most people never actually engage in what I would call a true math experience. But back to finances.

The DOE suggested that Connecticut simply administer the tests in the students’ native language. The tens of millions required to construct, conduct, and correct the tests in the over 150 languages spoken in the homes of Connecticut ESL students is an impractical and irresponsible number.

Historically Connecticut examined students in grades 3 through 8 every other year. NCLB requires yearly administrations and yearly comparisons, rather than a “cohort” analysis which considers a class of students over its progression through the system. This strategy costs less and is susceptible to short-term disruptions in the system.

Again, Connecticut asked for a waiver to continue with their system, which, as they note, has over twenty years of data. And the data are positive.

Again, NCLB standards were upheld. Rigidly.

The money this thing is costing the at the state-level is stupid. (I’ll find some references, but it’s not hard to believe that) Research has shown that the single most effective resource a school has is its teaching staff. Right now public schools pool from college graduates who rank, on average, in the lowest ten percent of their class. Sad is it is, when the job market opened up to women, all the smart swapped chalk and eraser for power suits and briefcases, and a larger pay check. So, please! invest in teachers.

If nothing else, applaud the politicians and educators in Connecticut for thinking and acting responsible about education even when the federal goverment makes it so hard.

NB: I have yet to listen to NPR’s coverage of the story. I’m sure I’ll have some more to rant about once I do. And if you can think of a way I can support the Connecticut Yankees, please let me know.