“Restaurant Chinese”

Once again, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for why I did not do a conventional Tuesday Frisbee post. We didn’t play this week. It rained too much. So there: a weather cancellation. Wait, that doesn’t sound right; that sounds like it was going to rain but then we called up the clouds and told them to knock it off. A cancellation due to weather. There, that’s better.

March of the Penguins is the movie that I have most recently viewed. It is charming, educational, and features Antarctica: all good reasons to like it. From this movie I learned that penguins are very strange, but very good at queueing. And when they get tired of walking, they start sliding on their bellies. Penguins would probably be excellent players of Super Action Ball.

And now, in the middle of the post, we explain the title. Turns out there’s this site that is a nice little tutorial in reading common Chinese characters found in restaurants. I’m definitely going to study it, if for no other reason than to add another party trick to my linguistic repertoire.

I took the GRE today, and it went well. In the interest of trying not to sound like I’m bragging, I won’t tell you here what my scores were. You can ask me personally some other time if you really care. Let it suffice to say that I did not score a perfect 1600 on the combined verbal and quantitative (read: math) sections, but I did not score poorly. And I did get to write what I thought was a pretty sweet essay on objectivity for the writing section, but I won’t know what score I got on that until later.

Since I am trying to whip up a report for the end of my Research Experience for Undergraduates, I bid you all farewell for the time being. As soon as I get some free time I also plan to start moving into the new apartment. And if you are in Grand Forks between the 3rd and the 10th of August, do contact me in some fashion. There are all kinds of friends I haven’t seen in a while. How’s this for an idea: tubing on the Red Lake River, anyone?

Finally

No, really! I have good excuses! Just read on for a bit.

You see that book at the top of my reading list? Over there, to the left. The Book of the New Sun? It’s a really good read. The kind that just eats up your free time.

My free time last Saturday was also consumed by another very pleasurable activity: water sports. I went to a lake (artificial, like they all are in Kansas) with my cousins, my aunt, my uncle, and their dog and had fun on their boat all day. Water skiing, kneeboarding, tube riding (also called “not falling off of tube”)—I did them all. It was a great day; I didn’t even get sunburned. And in the evening, after I ate pizza with these ever-so-kind relatives of mine, I hung out at their house and watched fascinating programs on the hunting habits of wolves and polar bears on the Discovery Channel. Made me really want to go to Scandinavia, though.

On Tuesday, I played Ultimate Frisbee, as usual. But you see, I’ve been so busy, I didn’t even have time to write my customary Tuesday post! The game was really exciting, and by exciting, I mean there were a lot of drastic momentum changes. For example: we start by allowing Team Red (for whom Anna plays, I might add) to score six unanswered points. No sweat, we say to each other, we just don’t like blowing out teams. We’ll come back. And indeed we did, ending the half on a 6-2 run, so we were only down two at the half.

Then we started the second half on a 7-0 run. If all these numbers are confusing you, that makes the score 13-8. But then we let our opponents back in a little bit, and soon we stood at 14-12 after failing to win game point three times or so. Then we finally sealed the deal with a sweet Capt. Ryan Kilmer catch in the endzone. Victory: Team Blue.

Oh yeah, I also saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and was suitably pleased. See? There’s another blog-stopper.

The research project is winding down or wrapping up, depending on your preferred turn of phrase. I received a crucial shipment last week, so I was finally able to test the magnetization of my magnetic polymer composites. The final report and poster presentation are coming up on August 2nd, so I’ve started working on those.

Also around that time, I will be moving in to the new apartment at 1420 Tennessee. And on August 3rd, I fly back to Grand Forks for about a week. It’s going to be busy up until the start of school… at which point I expect the engineering curriculum will make it busier.

Turing Test THIS!!: Now Your Home for Sporting News

…and the news in this case is that I have discovered the sport known as racquetball. On the off chance that some of you out there might also like to try a new sport, I will describe what I find to be particularly appealing about racquetball. Steve and Red will tell you it’s no Defender, but racquetball has a special charm all its own. Perhaps the appeal comes from being able to hit a ball extremely hard without having to run very far to fetch it. Maybe it’s the thrill of trying to keep up with the crazy ricocheting projectile as its ridiculous bounciness propels it from wall to wall to wall to floor to racquet to ceiling (I’m having some problems with that one) to wall, etc. that makes it so exciting. In any case, I am now hooked.

Which poses something of a problem here. There are a limited number (i.e. two) of racquetball courts at the local rec center, so they tend to fill up quickly. Reservations must generally be made ahead of time, making it more difficult to fulfill one’s need for blazing bouncing blue speed.

But if reserve I must, then reserve I shall. I now plan to use racquetball as part of my ninja training regimen, since it is clearly good for improving one’s speed, reflexes, coordination, and projectile path extrapolation skills. I recommend racquetball highly to anyone who is seeking Real Ultimate Power, or even just Pretty Nifty Skills (although I am fairly certain this is not why my father plays).

I’m also not entirely sure I have the rules entirely figured out. Eh… I’ll get to that later.

Tuesday Posts: Not Really Focused on Frisbee Anymore

The thing is, there’s just not that much to say about your average game. So I think I’ll be writing the equivalent of a highlight reel, and then moving on to another topic, starting this Tuesday. Come to think of it, that’s basically how last Tuesday went also.

Today I had what might be my best game of the season to date. Lots of playing time, no critical fumbles… and ironically, we lost. I described the difficulty of playing with only two subs last week; this week we discovered what it is like to play with only one sub. And that one person could well be the difference between victory and defeat, since last week we won, and this time, we lost. The final score was only 15-13, so it wasn’t a blow-out, but sometimes being that close to victory only makes defeat more bitter. Alright, I’m done.

Let’s also talk about fireworks this week. I will say this about Lawrence’s display: definitely respectable for a city of its size. For better or for worse, living in Chicago last summer forever skewed my perspective on the issue of fireworks. There they have fireworks twice a week throughout the summer, and the extravaganzas for Independence Day and Venetian Night (at the end of July) outshines small stars. Plus, all this happens over Lake Michigan, so private boats, often lit-up and decorated themselves, are cruising around trying to get a good view, adding to the spectacle. All that said, Lawrence’s fireworks were still a good time. I also got to eat a delicious grilled pork tenderloin dinner with my grandparents, so good food was also had last weekend.

I am still amazed at how packed my days are, even though I’m not occupied with engineering homework. It seems I managed to allocate and divide up that free time pretty early on in the summer.

And coming this Friday: the Stephenson Hall Alumni Barbeque!

The End of the World

Where the World Ends
Originally uploaded by Turing Test This.

Me? Melodramatic? Never!

This is the follow-up to Tuesday’s post; this is the other picture/story that I mentioned. What we see here is that the sea can be very much the same shade as the sky on the Gower Peninsula, as it was on that very first day I visited it. Thus, the horizon tends to vanish, and when you stand on a cliff overlooking the sea, it is a practically seamless wall of grey that is looking back at you, what seems to be the end of the world.

If I remember correctly, that spur of rock turns into an island when the tides come up.

Also went swimming today at the Lawrence public pools with Dana and Anna. We used our mutual knowledge of friction and fluid mechanics to optimize our velocities and splash profiles. For example, if you arch your back such that only your feet and head touch the slide, you reduce friction considerably, resulting in a much faster ride. Then if you want a splash, you fold into cannonball mode at the last second.