Thoughts

Dear friends, family, and all those who make up a part of my life,

Today I write an open letter to all of you, reflecting on what has been a dynamic year in 2009. Of course many will be quick to point out its downsides, but despite this, the year has also represented, what I believe anyway, to be progress on many fronts that may not yet be apparent. But, no matter what the year has meant to you, one thing is clear - we have all supported each other through its progress, and our lives are not the same without each other. This has been a year of growth for me, not only in my career as I approach the finish line of my Ph.D. studies, but also in my personal relationships and interactions with all of you.

There may be some of you reading this that I only speak to in passing, or perhaps we only have the chance to connect once or twice a year, perhaps even less. There are others that are a part of my daily life - you support me in everything I do, and I try to return the favor - my day and my life wouldn't be the same without you. There's my family, without whose support I would not be where I am. There are those of you who fall inbetween, but are still just as critical to me and my life. And there are those friends that I have lost - either through a fault of my own, through loss of contact, or through some misunderstanding - for you, my door and heart are always open, should you want to put past issues behind us.

For all, I wish 2010 to be a happy one, in whatever journeys you will take. We have a lot of growing to do as human beings, and as humankind and society. But thankfully, I have had all of you in my life to make my personal growth all that it has been, and I hope that I can do so as well as we all continue our walk through life. Best wishes,

-Adrian

On October 27th, 2008 at around 11AM, my life nearly changed permanently - and nearly in a bad way. After weighing the advantages (and in my mind, at the time, the disadvantages) of patiently waiting for a truck to slowly accelerate to speed right before an on-ramp to I-40 Eastbound, I decided, poorly, to pass the slow-moving vehicle in my 2006 Civic on the left right before crossing infront of it to make the relatively sharp curve onto the highway onramp. Needless to say, the maneuver resulted in massive oversteer. I couldn't correct early, for risk of flipping my car over an island. Instead, I chose to wait out the slide, but it was too late. I helplessly mashed the brake pedal, but my tires found no purchase and I smashed into an embankment at nearly 65MPH.

My luck turned for the better, as the embankment was sloped instead of a flat wall. After taking off the front bumper, deploying the airbag and flattening the lower half of the engine bay, I ramped off the embankment instead of smashing full-force into it. Because of the angle, the momentum caused the car to flip over, and I continued the rest of the journey on the roof of the car, sliding backwards.

I will never forget the smells, the pops, crunches, smashes, and shattering noises that I smelled, felt, and heard that day. I am lucky and grateful to be alive to tell this story, yet I never suffered a single injury other than airbag burn. While it is obivous that, had the car been equipped with Electronic Stability Control (see an amazing demo here) that the oversteer would not have happened. Yet, this is no excuse. I learned a very hard, but valuable lesson that rides with me every day that I drive. Today, I happily drive a 2009 Jetta TDI with Electronic Stability Control (called ESP for Electronic Stabilisation Programme). I strive every day to be safer, to be patient, and to be thankful that I wasn't hurt, and that I hurt nobody else.

So, today I think back, solemnly, yet gratefully, and continue to make the promise of patience to myself and others. Thanks for reading.

Yes, it is possible to write too many papers in a short period of time. :p

Bumped CPU from stock 2.4GHz to 2.67GHz - not the 2.8 at which it used to run, but anything's better than nothing at this point. The new RAM is running at ~800MHz, but it has an incredibly poor CAS latency - 6 clock cycles. Hopefully when I get the G.Skill sticks replaced, we can bump back up to 2.8 with DDR-1000 at CAS 5.

This morning, my father went through an angiogram procedure, which confirmed full and complete blockage of one of the coronary arteries. The blockage was at the site of the bypass graft, the connection between a normal coronary artery and a graft from a vein in his leg.

They threaded a catheter into the femoral artery in his leg, upto the blockage, and inserted a coronary stent. Following the procedure, he is doing well, and should be back to normal soon. My parents will be returning from New Orleans tomorrow, and I will be driving home on Friday. I'll post more as things develop.

My mother called this morning from an ambulance to tell me that he had suffered a minor heart attack. He is responding well to medication, but any possible damage is at the moment unclear. They are currently in New Orleans, where he is receiving care at the Tulane heart center. Please keep in in your thoughts and prayers. I'll post more as I find out details.

Allow me to eggsplain. After being eggsasperated by the eggregious eggnominies and eggspensive eggcess of the last administration, I decided to eggspress my hopes and eggspectations for our country's new beggining. From space eggsploration to the eggspansion of knowledge, science, and technology and other egglectic ideals, I have high hopes, which led me to eggsamine the possibility of making my very first Obama-themed easter egg!

The logo isn't eggsact, so please don't eggspound on and eggsaggerate its imperfections; I am not an eggspert in the creation of non-photographic visual arts. Its eggsistence should be enough to eggnowlege the eggsperience. I find it to be quite eggreeable, and begg you to appreciate the hard work put in during the eggsecution of your eggsegesis.

Egg.

A number of factors have come into play that will determine my final graduation date. Originally, I intended to graduate this December. In essence, I will do just that, but with a small twist. Because I will be unable to find a faculty position at a university mid-year, (hiring committees take place during summer months) I have decided to continue with my plans to defend my Ph.D. dissertation in December, but not sign the graduation forms until May of 2010. This is advantageous in a number of respects:

1. I will continue to be paid by EECS until it's actually time to start searching for a professorship
2. It gives me time to put out a good number of publications before I start a faculty position - more publications will make it easier to apply for tenure in the future. Also, it "gets my name out there," so to speak.
3. I can ride out the economy. By Spring 2010, I'm quite optimistic that things will look a lot better. Hopefully, more universities will be hiring.

With these decisions in mind, I will continue to work at the pace that I've set for myself, and then take the Spring 2010 semester to work as a post doc, without actually being one. In the meantime, I continue to make progress on my dissertation research, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it! More later.

Setup an account a while ago, but I do have a twitter feed (that also updates to Facebook): http://www.twitter.com/bytemaster0

Working on it. Making a new one. Still no luck.

Hey, shortest entry!

This posting is to all my friends, family, loved ones, and just about any other category of persons that I know, at home, at school, and around the world. To anyone who has been a part of my life in part, in whole, or even just in a small way, this is for you.

First, my heartfelt wishes to all for a wonderful new year for you. This coming year is one that I think will inspire us and give us hope for many reasons. I hope it's your best year ever. And may the next be even better, and so on.

Second, I am thankful to each and every one of you for the part(s) you have played in my life. This year has been tremendous for me in many respects. It has been one of many accomplishments, both personal and career-wise, and also of many joyous times. I am thankful to those of you who have been trusted friends, both in need and otherwise. You have been there for me, even though I may have failed to return the favor. I really couldn't ask for more. This year I have learned so much about life, love, living, and happiness. This is mostly due to all the individual parts that all of you have played. It gives life meaning and significance. You have taught me, either in a personal way, or by example or diffusion, how to love living life.

I am especially grateful to all of you who were there for me after my accident. Though I believe that I've mostly dealt with it, I still find myself grasping with difficulty exactly what has happened. It is a life-changing event that I will never forget, and I will never forget how you have helped me through it.

This next year has much in store for us. From Obama's inauguration, to the development of new key and critical technologies, we all have something in store. I am planning to complete my Ph.D. sometime around December, if all goes according to plan. This coming year, I am planning to try to visit more of you; this is one of the few opportunities I'll have to travel around before taking a full-time job, hopefully as a professor. If I haven't seen you in a while, let's try to get together, if possible, just let me know. I don't know where I'll be going when I'm finished with grad school; I have a couple of job offers already, but I'm curious as to where life will take me. One thing is for sure, because it's becoming easier to keep in touch with all of you by various technological means, let us all continue to do so. I always am curious to see how each and all of you are doing.

So, with the spirit of the holidays in mind, I wish all of you a blessed, happy new year!

So, on my lovely drive home, I was ticketed. Yep. I saw, up ahead, a pair of tail-lights go on, on the side of the road. I knew what it meant. Sure enough, I was being followed, with the trooper riding my ass for about a mile or so. And then the lights.

The silly thing is that, no matter how many times you go through this, you are ALWAYS nervous. I can never catch a break. Especially not from this guy. He "clocked" me on radar at "81" MPH. Which is bull. For those of you not in the know, the speedo needle on my Jetta isn't quite accurate. So, I have to "adjust" for it when I drive. I was doing 79, not 81, in a 70.

What infuriated me though, is that I later found out he had also cited me for "failure to show proof of insurance." This, despite handing it to him! Sure, the car listed on the insurance was different (I hadn't reprinted it since the accident), but that's why he has a computer in the car!

Either way, he "only wrote me down for 75." 75 in a 70? You have got to be kidding me. I'm going to court. Yes, it's in BFE Kentucky, but I think the judge will laugh and toss it out. The ticket even has two speeds listed on it, the "81" and the 75. That's quite a schizophrenic ticket.

The irony is that I was SO close to buying a RADAR detector today. I had spent two hours during the previous night researching the best low-budget detector. But, wanting to save my money, I decided not to. I dunno why this officer had it out for me, I passed several other cruisers at the same speed and nobody else seemed to care.

So, to BFE "boone county" KY I go in January. Or maybe another time, if I can have the court date extended.

< / rant>