Chasing Your Tail To Spite Your Face

Or something like that.

It's been about a week, and I needed to update. I don't believe I made my promise to blog every night official, but I said it in front of Jeff which amounts to the same thing. His rationalization as to my failure to comply is essentially the one I would pose, so I will.

Dr. Vakili got back to me on Wednesday saying he hoped I would be able to get some work done over the break....but that was it. So we played email tag until Friday when I broke down and called him (at 8:00 in the morning, mind you - I could have slept until 10:00). We discussed it, and he told me to work Monday through Thursday of this week. That's not so bad, but it would have been good to know before finals got started. I just needed a yes or a no.

On Thursday, the Wyld Stallyns (Jeff and I) won a $100 gift card at Buffalo Wild Wings. So far, that makes for around $500 that I've had a hand in winning since we got started back in the summer. Not bad, at all.

Saturday was Brent Elis's wedding. It was a very nice service (a Baptist wedding, which is weird, because most of the weddings I go to are Catholic). The church looked neat with all the Christmas trees. I did get to meet Julie, and her dad (who is Mom's cousin). Nice people, but neither of them acted as if they knew of my existence before Saturday. Well, I had Facebooked Julie a few days earlier. But anyway, it was a little weird. On the one hand, I didn't really know about either of them very well before a week or two ago, but on the other hand, I'm way more interesting than most of the people I know. I think Aunt Eleanor dropped the ball when it came to bragging about me.

Jennifer followed me back up to Tullahoma on Sunday so we could hang out a little bit more. On the way up, we stopped off in Nashville to check out ICE! at the Opry Mills Mall. After spending an hour looking for the darned mall (we couldn't leave the hotel parking lot), we finally made it in. They have lots of animal ice sculptures, ice slides, and a crystal clear Nativity scene made of carved ice. It was very cool (puns!).

Research has been coming along well, characterization is painful, but still kinda neat. I've come to the conclusion that *groan* a database is really what we need to start storing all the data from each run. Right now, we're set to have 50+ Excel spreadsheets. That's going to get hard to pull data together very quickly. Such is life, I suppose.

Jennifer headed back to Memphis this morning, but I'll be back sometime Thursday evening. Right now things are looking like I'll be in Memphis for a solid two weeks until January 7th, so let me know soon if you want to do anything. Dates are already filling up.

Walking In Memphis

Dr. Vakili really should have taken my lunch money today. That would have made the horror complete. Yesterday I said that I was prepared for the Inviscid Final, and I was wrong. I was prepared for an Inviscid Final. A subtle distinction, but a distinction nonetheless. That exam was crazy! No stream functions, a crazy derivation that we did months ago, and lots of Helmholtz and Kelvin. Evil, evil I tell you.

Anyway, I was supposed to talk to Dr. Vakili about Christmas vacation, but he was tied up in a meeting until at least 4:00. So, I drove home. I did shoot him an email about it. Worst case, he'll tell me to come back at some point. Meh. The drive back was pretty treacherous on I-24, what with the torrential downpour and the car-fire that brought traffic to a screeching, splashing halt. The sky was overcast on I-40, which kept us from flying blind.

Tonight was the pancake study break at CBU, which was great. When is free pancakes not great? Answer me that.

Hokey Smokes!

Three down, one to go. Today's Heat Transfer exam was a pretty fair test - just challenging enough to seperate the A students from the B students. That was all-for-naught, however, because the B-students had a golden parachute known as homework. Basically, Dr. Antar's philosophy is that you really have to give him a reason to NOT give you an A. Show up, get a C. Do alright on the final, get a B. Do at least so-so on the final and turn in the homework, get an A. That's how I understand things for now, at least. Anyway, I turned in my test & homework without walking funny, which is a good sign. We'll see what's what around the end of the week when grades are posted.

All I have left now is my Inviscid Final. According to Dr. Vakili, if you ace the final, you get an A no matter what. Fortunately, that's always my plan. Where I stand now is a decent mid-term grade, and what I can only assume are gold stars on my homework (he hasn't returned anything. Bad, Dr. Vakili! No biscuit!). Anyway, after reviewing material and old tests, I think I'm ready to rock'n'roll.

After my exam tomorrow, Heather and I are going to talk to Dr. Vakili about skipping town for Christmas Break. I'm all for leaving immediately and not coming back until the day before classes; I'm willing to negotiate the second part. Heather doesn't care so much because it isn't as big a deal for her to come down here if she's needed, but it is for me. I've asked her to simply not say anything. We'll see if that works.

The Killer Angels

Today was a nice relaxing study day. I've been reading over notes and exerpts from the book for my Heat Transfer final tomorrow, and I think I'm close to being ready. Dr. Antar gave us the topics he'd be covering on the final (which suprisingly, are the high points of the course). The problem here is that the subject matter lends itself to really simple questions or really really really hard questions. Personally, I'm hoping for the former.

I went ahead and bought the books I'll be needing for next semester. Well, sort of. I bought my Inviscid book & Missile Design book with no problems, but it turns out I purchased the wrong edition of my Machine Design book - that's a first for me. Well, the vendor was kind enough to email me to let me know that there is a more recent edition out there, so I emailed him back that I'd cancel my order. Actually doing that on Amazon.com is essentially impossible. It turns out that the actual vendor is the only person that can do that. He emailed me at 6:30 tonight, and I got back to him a little after 8:00. If I don't have an answer by COB tomorrow, I'll raise some Cain. Anyway, once I get the right edition, I'll have spent less than $180 on books. Not too shabby, eh?

In other news, Brent's fiance' refers to Jeff and I as Rocky & Bullwinkle. That's pretty funny, especially since I called dibs on Rocky.

I'm about a third of the way into The Killer Angels, which Jennifer gave to me for my birthday. It's written by Michael Shaara (father of Jeff Shaara). Most of you know the film version - Gettysburg. Its a little different than what I'm used to from the younger Shaara; his novels cover months or years at a time, Killer Angels covers less than a week. Its very cool though, seeing the battle through the eyes of Longstreet, and Lee from the South, Buford, Hancock, and Chamberlain from the North. Good call, Jennifer.

Oh Snap!

After watching cartoons while I ate breakfast (an old, familiar ritual from years and years ago), I got started studying for my Inviscid final. Dr. Vakili gave us copies of the tests from both 2004 and 2005. Both of them look to be very fair, and very workable in the alloted 2 hours. The last two questions on both tests are nearly identical, which makes it either highly likely or highly unlikely that they'll be on the test. I'm leaning towards the former. One is a little harder to get your head around than others (there's some hair-splitting involved), but I can get it down in plenty of time.

After studying all day, it was time for Taco Night, with Chicken Little for a light-hearted mood. Recently, we've had some really high-minded (not funny) movies such as Fight Club, 12 Monkeys, and Se7en (yeah, a weird Brad Pitt series. Completely accidental, I swear). Anyway, a very funny animated movie. Good for a laugh.

When I went back up to my room after the movie, Jeff hollered from across the hall that he'd gotten an email from Kuperschmidt. I checked mine as fast as my fingers would let me. What did I find? I GOT AN A FOR THE COURSE. Oh Snap! The commie has redeemed himself, somewhat.

Studying after that seemed a little moot, and I had really hit a good stopping point for the studying anyway. In other news, if you've been paying attention, my blog looks slighty different because I recently upgraded to Blogger Beta. So far, I'm liking it. Which is weird, because Beta usually translates to "crappy." We'll see.

Math Cow Disease

Today was the day of the Applied Vector Calculus final exam.

It started off like any normal day (except that I slept until 9:00 instead of 8:00). After breakfast, Jeff and I concluded that any attempts at studying at the apartment wouldn't be very successful. After a quick good-luck phone call from Jennifer, we headed up to school.

After liberating a ream of paper from the C-Lab (C-Wing, not some dorky abbreviation for Computer Lab), Jeff and I got down to business. I'm glad I went through all of the problems over the last two days, and special thanks to Amy for compiling Kuperschmidt's solutions. I can honestly say that I did not commit any problem to memory, but it helped a lot being really familiar with both the material and the problems. Amy's flash cards also helped. I'll never make fun of anyone for making flashcards.

I should mention that around 11:00, I saved Astronomy Kid. He's the student from South Korea that likes to camp out in one of the classrooms to do his homework. This time, he seemed to have taken the camping metaphor a little too seriously - he was passed out on one of the tables. I hollered at him and made sure he wasn't missing a final, and let him be. He came by a little later to thank me, because he did have a final at 1:00 and was sure he would have slept through it. No problemo.

About a half-hour before the exam, we packed up and chilled for a little bit. It was one of those nervous, on-edge, laugh at anything conversations. We discussed Seasame Street for Grad Students, and how we would soon be knee deep in the Math exam. Knee-deep in something, at least. And somehow that conversation gave birth to "Math Cow Disease."

We headed down to the classroom at about 12:45, ready for the worst. There was plenty of gallows-humor in the room, which broke the tension nicely. My assorted-fruit TUMS were a hit, it seems. Anyway, Dr. Kuperschmidt shows up, and gives us a six problem final that I mostly remembered how to do. On one problem, it seems he didn't copy the statement correctly from the book, making the problem unworkable under the conditions. We'll see what he does about that. He was supposed to email us with our grades this afternoon, but he didn't. What a chump.

Working out at the Fitness Center went well. Packing a bag is a bit of a pain, but the free-ness makes up for so much. Dinner was at Davy Crockett's Roadhouse - the food was as good as Colton's or Logan's, but the service is a tad hit-or-miss. Dr. Who and BSG were pretty good, I think we have next Friday before the winter hiatus. Hopefully Christmas and New Years' will keep me occupied on the in between.

Lest We Forget

I'm told that it snowed this morning, but I had no idea. I was sitting three feet from a window, and had no idea. I don't think it snowed very much or for very long, but it did snow. Neat.

And why didn't I notice? Because between most of yesterday afternoon and all of today, I reworked all of the math problems we've covered since the mid-term. That's a lot of problems, and I feel like I could do about half of them on the spot. I plan on getting up in the morning around 9:00, and reviewing theory / memorizing some proofs. Here's hoping.

The Technical Writing Final was tonight, because the professor isn't going to be anywhere near Tullahoma next Tuesday. That was fine with me - I prepared as much for the final tonight as I would have next week. It was pretty stupid. It did get me out of the house for a bit, even if we're getting a draft from Northern Siberia right now.

Smallville was pretty good tonight, but the best thing about it was the trailer for the next episode in January - "Justice." Basically, we'll have Clark Kent, Green Arrow, Cyborg, The Flash, and Aquaman all fighting bad guys together in one show. Sweet.

Finally, today is December 7th, the 65th anniversary of that attack on Pearl Harbor. I generally wax philosophical on days like this, and today is no different. I'm saddened that it barely came up today, as it rarely does. I know that it was a pretty long time ago, but in all honesty it was one of the pivotal moments in 20th Century America - if not America's entire history. I guess I feel like its important to remember. Someone should.

It's A Small World After All

So apparently, one of the bridesmaids in Brent's wedding is a cousin of mine, Julie Colter Kaylor . She's actually more like a second cousin or something, I'm related to her via a great aunt. Its very likely that I've met her a few times at reunions, but I don't know that I could pick her out of a crowd. However, that won't keep me from remembering her name for possible kidney/liver donors. That's what families are for, right?

The Superfriends met again today to discuss the Inviscid Final. We used tests from the previous two years as a starting point, and discussed more and more as we went along. I think everybody got something out of it; I know I did. Lunch in the Dinning Hall was great, good chopped steak.

I'd have to say that the biggest thing I'm missing about finals back at CBU is the Pancake Study Break. That was the best idea. Ever. It was late enough at night to be a treat, it broke the tension of marathon study sessions, and it was FREE. Jeff and I have Amy (our SGA Senator) convinced to press for it next semester. Its good to know the system works.

The Mythbusters Christmas Special was on tonight. Don't drop frozen turkeys on your foot, your pet, or anything else. It won't end well, I promise. Also, the Rube Goldberg Christmas Contraption was wicked. Diet Coke + Mentos = Freakin' Awesome.

Also, I am Mighty.

Injuns On The Warpath

Today was officially the last day of classes for the semester. Woohoo.

Jeff and I got up to school at about 10:45 for a Superfriends study session, covering most of the material for the Vector Calculus exam. I'm expecting that to be my roughest exam, what with the Crazy Russian running the show and the actual math on top of that. I should be able to handle it, but we'll see.

Dr. Antar finished covering everything we needed to cover with a little less than half of the class time remaining. Not too shabby. The final is going to be 5 or 6 questions, and is supposed to cover the basics. I think I can do that.

I'm liking the FREE Arnold Fitness Center more and more. Did I mention that it was FREE? Yeah, that's pretty affordable. And its got Jeff going to the gym. Kudos all around.

I threw together my Carbon Fiber presentation in about an hour, which is more time than Hot Rod spent on his, it seemed. Jeff covered his Heat Transfer topic rather well, I covered mine pretty well, and Hot Rod seemed like he was making it up as he went along. I understand that his research hasn't been fleshed out yet (not unlike Jeff and I), but he went ahead and blundered through a bunch of technical detail that he was neither prepared or versed-enough in to talk about whereas Jeff and I wisely made completely bogus presentations. And the Injuns smelled his fear, and fed upon it. For a good 10 minutes - they even cut Hot Rod out of the conversation near the end. Eventually, I was forced to start the slow clap to end debate - luckily Jeff, Tim, and Danger caught on. Hey, we were ready to leave.

Lastly, it was brought to my attention that Brent has linked me on his website, so I'm returning the favor.

Vortex Shedding - Get The Facts

Today was the last day of Invsicid Flow. Jeff & I switched seats with Heather & Amy to see if Dr. Vakili would notice. He didn't. And we watched some ancient movies about steam lines and vorticity. They predicted lunar colonies by the late 1980s. Yowzah.

After the movies, Dr. Vakili talked about the Magnus Effect, which states that if a hypothetical airplane takes off from Atlanta heading towards Nashville moves in Inviscid Air, it leaves behind a big honkin' vortex to counteract the discontinuity at the tail end of its airfoils. Fortunately, we live in a viscous world. Otherwise, I'm sure that the Atlanta International Airport would have been sucked into another dimension what with all the vortices and all.

After class, Heather and I tried to map out our Christmas Break with Dr. Vakili to no avail. There's some high level stuff going on right now that's preventing him from making a few decisions. This leaves me in a frustrating position. Technically, he's within his rights to have me work every weekday between exams and next semester. He'd lose all of his cool points if he did that, but he can do it. Honestly, I think he's just been around the block enough times to be scared of committing to any statement without having supreme control over the situation. Most likely everything will be okey-dokey, he's just waiting to see what's up first.

There were actually people at the Fitness Center today. Crazy.

Heroes was very excellent tonight, but it was a cliffhanger that will keep me cliffhanging until January 22nd. Not cool.

I also found out today that BSG will be moving to Sunday nights when it comes back. What's up with that?

Me Fail English? That's Unpossible!

It seems that I'm not doing so good in the Spelling and Grammer department. Fortunately, I have a girlfriend and a dad to keep that in check. And for the record, most of that money spent on school was focused on science, math, and engineering.

More Heat Transfer homework today. Its a bad sign when a solution manual flat out refuses to solve a problem due to shear complexity. Very bad sign. Chapter 3 got put to rest today, and Chapter 4 should be done before I go to sleep. That'll just leave about 5 problems left to solve tomorrow night - doable, but undesireable.

The Librarian 2: Return to King Solomon's Mine premiered tonight on TNT. The first one was great, and this follow up was pretty good. You don't really have to have seen the first one to follow the sequel, and its a pretty good way to kill two hours. They'll be re-running it ad nauseam until Christmas movies start dominating the programming, which should be sometime around Thursday. Check it out.

You Got Your Batwoman In My Molemen!

I've had much, much worse Saturdays than today. Some Eggo waffles for breakfast, cartoons (Superman & the Legion of Superheroes and The Batman), and then I got to work on the ginourmous amount of Heat Transfer homework.

I've been bogged down in Chapter 3 for quite a while - separation of Variables. Repetition has helped thing make sense, to a point. I've gotten a much better grasp for the procedure, but the decision making paradigm still escapes me. According to our PDE expert Amy choosing the eigenfunction is completely random, but I don't buy it. I think its one of those things they explain to you after they give you a PhD. So basically, I'm not that interested in finding out about it right now. I should be out of the Ch 3 bog before lunch tomorrow, which is good. Then I can move on to Superposition, Complex Combination, and Normalization. Sweet.

Pizza for dinner, then Jeff and I finished watching 12 Monkeys. It got interesting, then kinda weird again, and then kinda interesting again, and then it ended weird. After that, Jeff and I watched Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Wild World of Batwoman - one of THE most awful movies ever made. Mike and the two robots, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot made the movie watchable. Hilarious.

Also, this is my 50th blog post here at Adventures in Grad School. That's half-way to a hundred, you know. I'm going to pat myself on the back now.

I'm Ugly Like A Fox

It seems that the weather finally got a good look at the calendar, saw that it was actually December now, shouted "Great Scott!," and started making up for lost time. It was in the 30s and 40s today. I could have worn shorts on Tuesday & Wednesday. That's nuts, man.

Not much happened today, but it should have. Heather & I were supposed to meet with Pete the shop guy to talk about some kind of conveyor belt. We showed up to the Lab at 10:45 as promised, and no Pete. So I tried to load some carbon fibers on a tray for analysis, but got bored of that quickly.

Heat Transfer got really ugh-worthy when we started talking about Finite Difference Methods for transient problems (that's where something is getting heated or cooled over time). The bottom line was that you wind up having a 15 x 15 matrix that has to be solved for each time interval you go through. That gets really ugly, really fast. According to Dr. Antar, its not so bad now that we have these new-fangled 64-bit processors in our computers.

Dr. Antar let class out a few minutes early so that we could get to the seminar on time. For reasons that have not been revealed to me, we didn't have this seminar on Wednesday but on Friday afternoon instead. Aside from the scheduling inconvenience, it was a pretty neat seminar. The presentation was on current and future projects conducted by the Air Force Materials & Manufacturing Directorate at Wright-Patterson AFB. Topics included: biological heat seeking missiles, carbon-fiber aircraft (SHOUT-OUT), self-healing aircraft, transformers (robots-in-disguise), fire-fighting ATVs with super nozzles, and sentry bots that challenge intruders with a 30-caliber machine gun (SWEET!). I may have said that "SWEET!" a little too loud during the presentation, but oh well. If I were giving a lecture, I'd rather hear that on occasion rather than utter silence.

The Arnold Fitness center seems to be working out just fine. My calves & shins started protesting after my run, so I had to pass on the elliptical today. Oh well. Dinner at Ruby Tuesday's was awesome, Dr. Who was pretty good, and BSG was great. Jeff and I started watching 12 Monkeys, but he woosed out. We'll finish it tomorrow night, along with another Mystery Science Theater 3000. Good times.