Life is quite eventful.

BTW, sorry for the parser errors. This blogging system is something that I put together myself, so it's up to me to fix the problems. Unfortunately, things are broken and I don't have time to fix them. Or, more precisely, my posting system doesn't check to remove various bits like & and <.

So I have to craft my posts carefully, or things start to break.

Personally, I'm just happy that the system works at all right now. ;)

So anyway. Things are quite eventful. I've applied to quite a few places, and some have started to reply back. Unfortunately, some will quite probably say yes or no far too late for me to still be around for them. Only time will tell--there's always a chance I'll still be looking when they come up.

This semester is insanely busy. Luckily, things have quieted down somewhat in the last few weeks, so I've been able to sift through the backlog and even start to get ahead (as opposed to just keeping my nose to the grindstone to stay in place.... And things (like programs) are quite successful.

So that's life right now. Things are looking pretty good, but still crazybusy.

Sitting on the couch, watching stooges, reading GNOME blogs.

Can life get any better? I submit that it cannot!

FreeSci progresses well right now. I can do fun things with matrices!

Aight, hopefully things will stop locking up randomly.

As you can tell, I passed the qualifying exam. Not by much, mind, but enough. :) This means I can work on purchasing a Linux tablet, and I've already arranged the steak grilling for this weekend, and I've ordered some books on MPI that I'll hopefully be able to use when it comes time for me to generate my own code.

Actually, I'm writing this as I'm waiting for emerge to finish building stuff so that I can pack up my laptop to go to the Wig and Pen with John (coming in to town) and Ben (also passed the quals).

I've tried upgrading my kernel to 2.6.8.1-mm[23], but it doesn't seem to pick up my sound card. I'm going to try to use my old config from 2.6.7, but there's no guarantee for that. They don't seem to lock up or anything, but no sound, no joe. :)

ipw2100 driver got bumped up to version 0.53, so I tried out the new ebuild. Seems to be working like a charm [nojinxnojinxnojinxnojinx]. I suspect the 0.47 driver I was using was causing my random lockups. I couldn't upgrade to anything newer, since I'm using the Software Suspend 2 patch which conflicts with ipw2100 0.48-0.52. But not 0.53!!!!

Today was pretty well. I found out the qual results yesterday, and my advisor congratulated me today. After that, I tried to upgrade the undergrad's computer, but SuSE 9.1 (the download net-install CD) refused to work with XFS. It'd write the filesystem, but then oops (and subsequently lock up on any mount ops) when mounting the new filesystem. GRRR. I very much hope they've patched that in the newer kernels so that it's not a problem that /home is xfs. Felt pretty good to wipe out the old win2k install on there and put in a 100% linux system. :)

So now it's got reiser3 on it, and is happily updating (Yay Internet2!). During the long intermissions, I managed to get some work done on the paper we're putting together, and I bounced the next part back at my advisor. Hopefully it's good; making things look Just Right is a major pain. :)

Whelp, I think that's all for now. Peace out.

So, the qualifying exam is coming. "What's the qualifying exam?" you ask? How I wish I didn't know!

The Qualifying Exam, for those who aren't familiar with it, is the first real step (aside from GPA) toward becoming a Doctoral Candidate and thus the first real step toward getting a PhD. I have two chances to pass this exam, and then I can only get a Master's degree; I must get a PhD elsewhere.

The exam itself consists of 12 questions. The are distributed over three days beginning on the 16th of August this year, and we have 4 hours per day to complete the 4 questions given.

Additional pressure comes from the fact that Shannon's baby-crazy, and this is one of the last few obstacles standing between her and maternity. So you can imagine that she wants me to pass. So badly that she'll let me buy a Linux tablet. Schweet.

So anyway, I've been reading and working problems. I'm almost done with E&M. Quantum I essentially just need to review by working problems and checking a few spots. Classical Mechanics is mostly reviewed at this point; I need to work more problems, esp. constraint problems. Then we have Stat Mech which ought to be fairly straightforward, except for the fact that I've forgotten most of it at this point. :(

So my new plan for the next month is quite simple: STUDY.

G'night!

Well, I've finally gotten my lazy blog posting system up. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say that I can now post much more easily than I used to be able to.

Whelp, I am in the midst of studying for quals. I just put this up this evening because I was getting tired of having a blank page. :) My old blogs should come back as soon as I can get them off the old server. As soon as quals are over (or maybe as a study break), I am working to get gallery going for the photos. Gthumb rocks, but I still would like more features.

So, why do I go through all the pain of making autoblog? Well, the answer is simple. Moichendising, moichendising, moichendising.

So anyway, I didn't get much actual work done today. For that, though, I got a goodly chunk of studying for the quals. A good day's work, I'd say

I sent the new font dialog in to Jody for review, but I've not heard back from him. Once that's done, we can move on with this new font dialog business. Next project is up in the air. I still need to finish the infrastructure for the gnumeric design I was working on. Apparently they want changes done in the content, but nobody's really working with me to effect those changes, leading to some frustration here on this end. [Sigh]

Ah well. The family reunion and preceding vacation was fantastic. We stayed in the Country Inn hotel (highly recommended!) in Kentucky and visited Mammoth Cave and Lexington. We then went to Gettysburg, just in time for their 141^th anniversary! We were in town on the street exactly 141 years from when the Union army was marching up it, trying to reclaim Gettysburg and taking heavy casulties.

Anyhow, the family reunion photos should be up fairly quickly, then the anniversary photos.

I think I hear the wash calling....