waste the rainbow

just a couple of things ive been thinking about

2009-11-11T04:05:43Z

persistent strands of persistent algorithms, wild-headed thunderclap with shadows of golden filaments streaking tributaries of pythons

perpetually crippled in the face of my tormentor, the luxury of a neurotic asshole, debasing anything and everything just to stave off that feeling, when a coping mechanism becomes a reflex

and then a little wedge of peace

accelerating trajectory

2009-08-30T23:34:56Z

there is so little time to consider my trajectory, so little time to consider primary desires and their manifestations.

five weeks after coding a flashy modern algorithm, it failed to perform its desired task. three days after coding a crude algorithm from basic principles, the project was complete.

and then the realization that ive been distracted by flashy, proximal things -- irrespective of what my desires are, without even enumerating them for myself -- and then staring at my old friend, abstract annihilation -- because, my cortex is the other ruler and it doesn't care for a thing unless it is told to -- which gets me to the deeper layer fraught with flaws -- extension of spatial, emotional, and intellectual territory in all directions -- constantly contradicting itself, stumbling over its own feet as its greedy tendrils lay claim -- another friendly fellow that needs to be ignored and constantly suppressed -- and then recalling what brought me back from the depths the last time: consequences for others, mitigating the suffering of others, the construction of civilization, the desire to have a functional civilization -- and i just read day in and day out, consuming information passively -- distracted only by the closest things -- without resources and power to initiate grand designs -- approximating the shortest path to the desired state

bone daddy

2008-08-29T04:46:45Z

an implicit assault upon logic and reason by the irrationals -- the cold brand of logic steadies the twitching hand of adrenaline, the currents of dark emotion which flourish at the depths, the ridiculously high standard of living that science affords, the ability to be moved by a fitful madman, effusive compliments degrading the strength of those words...

he wanted to sway me into following my emotions. 'emotionomics' was supposed to bring about some revelation in me -- the fact that the emotions of the masses can be exploited for marketing purposes isnt going to convince me that i need to yield to thoughtlessness.

and then she reads me a passage from anais nin about yielding to erotic desires -- a tacky display of aggression, a call to the testosterone poisoned to 'take me! take me!' she doesnt understand that im wary of progeny, that the future dictates emotion, that i dont take actions or words lightly if they have prolonged ramifications. maybe she understands, but is not aware.

he broke up with a girl based solely upon intuition. he wants to machete through the logic that binds his desires. logic becomes equated with inhibition. inhibition is just another emotion, but its branded as logic because consequences are accessed to justify it. understand that the cortex is a plaything of the brain stem, that logic is just the tool for it to access its desires, that the desires conflict, that primordial desires damn the consequences, that to ignore logic is to ignore causality

held hostage by the innocent children of the breeders, the maze of hypothetical binary opposition, swirling principles and the evolution of arguments.

that'll do, pig

2008-08-09T08:19:49Z

improper access terminals gazing upon forgotten contraband -- ive spent the past forever mastering a dying art form and the comments, the godawful comments are now under full control. speak a word of squirming with such force and it betrays the source, it belies the coarse spawning grounds from which it crowned. did i tell you i miss you because i dont have the chance to -- if it did, i would be slightly pulled back (into the throat). because the big wall is up and the guard wants to throttle for cosmetic reasons at the bare minimum -- and goddamn these eyes in my mind that make concrete vision so clear when transient shimmering curtains are the norm. how i long to hold her in glancing blows -- streams of catacombs with spirits' dancing robes. with seer sucking leeches in the undertow, i wonder why -- and quickly flow to the next gate asking permissions and creeping through the cluttered glow -- did you hear that i was giving off this vibe? have you been commenting on my trajectory? watch how i suck it in to absorb it and deny it some magnificent yield -- the feeding, the feeding.

florida part 2

2008-08-01T18:52:31Z

my phone rang while i was in 3303 that monday. mom told me that grandfather had died.

wow
many years ago, when my father told me of my uncle's death over the phone, i remember feeling a pang like an ice pick in the center of my brain. this time, there was only shock. i imagine that my mourning had dissipated the potential emotional shock. i was prepared emotionally, but not mentally.

arrangements were of immediate concern. the funeral was Friday, so i booked a flight for Thursday and emailed my aunt to see if it would be okay to stay at the Deland house -- slumber party with my cousin David. emailed response: "Bring it on!"

i had a meeting with my adviser wednesday -- i showed him a simple, but interesting result concerning the complicated geometry that translated signals acquire in signal space.

i had to sell a bonnaroo ticket immediately. using craigslist for the first time, i was able to sell it for fifty less than i paid for it. not ideal. after an hour drive under the rumblings of an intense thunderstorm, i met with the customer in woodbridge, va (which is beautiful and affluent as all fuck -- the kind of place where i could bury my kids). we exchanged the goods and i headed back home. the deluge became so overpowering that a column of emergency lights could only slip through at 25 mph, but i eventually made it home safe and sound.

thursday morning, my mother called with a hint of frantic in her voice. she wanted me to stay at the hotel with taylor on thursday. all things being equal, i abide. later that day, i lugged my giant orange samsonite to BWI and flew to orlando. a taxi drove me to mt. dora where i walked, talked, and ate with taylor. he was reading a joke book and wanted to put together a comedy routine for one of his summer camps. after pointing out the techniques employed by some of his favorite comedians, i convinced him that jokes were not the proper route. he then asked me if calculus is hard, so i tried to explain derivatives to him. unfortunately, he had never seen terminator 2, so he didnt pay as much attention to me. after T2 ended, we fell asleep.

mom and dad had arrived at around 3am. they were tired, but we trotted down to the continental breakfast at the hotel. mom had convinced dad to shave his mustache because it had become peppered with gray hairs. it didn't look right at all. we all got caught up and then hurried back to the rooms to don formal attire. before we left, i pulled out a sheet of math-covered, yellow notebook paper and folded it into a waterlily. yellow -- like charlene strawn, grandfather's first hybrid waterlily named after grandmother.

soon we were at seminole springs cemetery, waiting for devon and christine. we saw terry and his girlfriend, but nothing ended up transpiring. just a quick note: terry is a huge dude -- on the order of 6'6". devon and christine soon showed up and devon was rocking the tan-in-a-can.

the service started and i thought it would have been measurably better without the chaplin that was leading it. sitting next to my father put me right at the epicenter of his blubbering. he kept blowing his nose during the entire ceremony. for all the shit he talked about grandfather, he was the most emotionally wracked at the funeral. my favorite part began with steven's eulogy. i never knew that grandfather had put together an aquaculture program between the egyptians and israelies. after steven's eulogy, people began to tell different stories about grandfather. my dad related that he would never fail to stop at a fruit stand on the side of the road, and that he would always make sure that everyone had a fruit in hand afterwards. that was touching.

after the service, i put the origami waterlily in the bouquet.

we quickly dispersed afterwards and the deland family and texas family secretly met up at "pisces rising" in mt. dora. steven chose the place (any connection to the fact that both of the eldest children in the families are pisces?). we talked, ate, and drank for three hours. then the old fogies and grandkids separated to hang out. the entire retinue of grandkids decided to head to deland. of course, there was nothing to do except eat and play halo (and i would be pwned at this constantly).

steven returned and began raining espresso and liquor upon us. this left me extremely up and buzzy for dinner at the deland family's favorite thai restaurant. on the drive there and back, steven drove like the daytona 500 and blared fat boy slim. he pointed out the building where his lawyer worked.

and that is the courthouse where i beat the shit out of david strawn
david strawn -- my grandfather's brother. that evening, steven asked if i wanted to get up at 4:30am the next morning and go birding. i was all for it.

steven nudged me awake and i leapt to my feet. he provided me with leather boots, a hat, and binoculars. we drove up to the 1500 acres and awaited the sunrise. a portly english gentleman named harry rolled up. harry is the damn sphinx of birding (and also of cake making since his wife died). at around 6am, a woman named karen joined us. until 11pm, we trekked around and heard over 40 different types of birds: hawks, heron, owls, woodpeckers, american crows, and so many more. i was not in shape for the hike, but i found it to be invigorating. and it reminded me that i do not notice a thousand pieces of information throughout the day. i drink drops from the vast stream that engulfs me.

afterwards, i talked with david about blind source separation. im lucky that a world authority resides at umd now...

for the rest of the day, we recuperated. we drove to bubba gump shrimp and ate heartily with my mom and dad. then mom and dad had to leave for texas. devon bought a nascar hat at disney. for some reason, christine and devon love nascar (perhaps because of talledega nights).

sunday was a day of extreme recuperation. i went and watched julia ride some horses with a trainer and had a long conversation with her trainer's boyfriend. the guy was in the army, but it sounded like he was trying to figure things out.

on monday we went to typhoon lagoon. steven completely annihilated us at a race in the lazy river -- i pushed pretty hard, but i got to the exit and steven was lounging with a foster's.

we are all wimps, and you, sir, are the devil.
lightning and rain began to scare away other patrons, but we weathered the storm until the rides were nearly vacant. on our way up the banana blaster, we kept making up lewd ride names -- the butternut squasher.

finally, steven drove me back to MCO on tuesday.

florida part 1

2008-06-19T15:39:18Z

two weeks ago, i began a thirteen hour drive to deland, fl to visit my grandparents and my uncle's family. a self-imposed work load, and a resource-imposed cash flow had begun to gnaw away at the potential execution of this journey, but i rationalized that i could get work done during lulls (hah) and also my grandmother posted the funds for travel. grandma had called earlier in the week and i decided at that moment to visit the florida family. two days later she called and told me that my grandfather, who has been fighting with parkinson's for seven years, was on his way out. this prediction didnt have much credit with me because they have been predicting his demise each winter for the past five years.

when i arrived grandma was asleep, but my aunt made the situation clear to me. grandpa's motor neurons had been failing for a while, but now they could no longer control digestion. nurses helping my grandmother told her that he had three to ten days of life left. after saying hello to the family and engaging in some light conversation, i slept.

eggs and coffee woke me up. my uncle and i chatted for a while about birds, insane governmental regulation, and the future of the 1500 acres. after a bit, went to see grandmother. i told her that she looked great and was greeted with a skeptical look. she had not been sleeping well lately -- but she still looks great for her age. we chatted in the living area for a while until the call of juvenile sandhill cranes reached us from across the lake behind the house. my uncle went to get some binoculars and my grandmother handed me travel money just as he returned. he soon left and i went to see my grandfather with grandma. there was nothing left of the man i had known. his irises were clouded and milky, his body was frail and shriveled, his mouth was agape exposing the full roof. grandma swabbed the roof of his mouth with raspberry-flavored morphine.

we gathered together the troops for one last goodbye. uncle steve was the first to say goodbye in the procession. aunt laura then placed her hands on grandfathers knee and head, crying as she spoke, "Kirk, you gave us flowers and fruit and my beautiful husband. I'll miss you dearly." Pangs of sorrow moistened my eyes. Then my cousins said their goodbyes. Finally, I walked up and momentarily hesitated before placing my hand on his knee. "It's me, Nathan. I'm just up for the weekend. We had some good times in Virginia when we went to family camp -- after doing kitchen duty and fighting with some people not doing a good job, you told me that I was a 'shit-shoveler'. That has been a source of constant amusement to me. I'll miss you."

at eleven, a van from the hospice pulled up to the garage that acts as vestibule to my grandparents' bedroom. five years ago, my uncle fought the county to install a sink in the satellite house in which my grandparents now dwell. the entire structure was designed for care taking -- the foundation was built to be level with the garage, double doors open up from the bedroom to the garage, the shower is large and lacks a floor divider, the rear deck meets with a hot tub. as the man from the hospice took grandpa, i felt as though i was witnessing a cosmic event. grandmother followed the van as it pulled away, and we immediately executed her command to clear out grandpa's beddings from the bedroom. as we wheeled out the old bed, my uncle repeatedly expressed his nonchalant astonishment.

uncle steve took the rest of the day off. a number of things were going to have to occur, and the appearance of uncle terry at the funeral had him worried. i went to a spring with my cousins to swim and get caught up with them. later, i came back and laura gave me grandpa's baby album. the thing was ancient. black acid paper rubbed off on my hands as i meticulously flipped through the yellowing photos with white captions. long ago, the pages had separated from the binding. robert richie strawn sired kirk with marian strawn. from the stories, robert richie was a devout hardass and bible thumper. his mother had played here sons against each other and he had come out the other end competitive intellectually and physically. kirk was a more a more introverted person and less physically apt. he began his long career as a naturalist at age eight with a garden and goldfish pond. at that age, he had been ill -- perhaps with polio. he also had a pony named ginger ale and a dog named applesauce. the photos followed him to yellowstone, highschool, and his wedding day.

that evening, laura handed me grandpa's cv, resume, and some speeches given in his honor. she then pulled out the obit that she had patched together from this material. as i looked it over, i realized that i could bring a sense of organization to it and she was happy to have the help.

grandmother showed back up and steven prepared a dirty martini for her. we sat around watching a video from 1954 that detailed the operations of strawn orange groves. grandmother provided commentary throughout the viewing. it was amazing to see what a large scale operation they had put together. of course, it had crumbled under family strife and freezes.

the next day was lazy. after breakfast and another coffee-fueled morning conversation with my uncle, my cousin's friend showed up and we went to lunch in deland. as soon as we returned, i finished up the draft of kirk's obituary. in the evening, laura informed us that my mother had found uncle terry and that my father's conversation with his girlfriend was full of venom. in the face of a flash of mania, i went tharn and submitted. certain realizations were beginning to creep up on me. that night i talked to my brother and mother about what was happening. i told them that things were under control. i had faith in steven to handle things well.

the next morning, steven told me of a dream involving tornadoes on the south side of campus in college station, in the neighborhood where they used to live. in the dream, he was driving on texas ave and couldnt find the turn onto francis which leads to my grandparents' old house on ashburn. i left at 10:30 am listening to inrainbows by radiohead, and weeping to 'videotape'. i listened to inrainbows on repeat for the entire journey.

modeling automaton

2008-05-15T05:07:52Z

barefeet expressed interest in focm 2008 upon my discovery. they will fly your happy ass anywhere and booze you up if youve got a talk that people are willing to hear. this is the kind of thing that needs to be exploited.

feeding hungry children makes more hungry children.

rorschach functions.

blind source separation so they can spy on you. feature extraction so they can spy on you and zilch you. justifications.

fumbling at the portcullis with invaders looting and gawking until the gate cleaves meat blessed with excruciating seizures -- wracked with internal famine but deluged by stately glaciers, im tromping up cobblesteps and trimming my patience. the squid swill dribbling inky licorice tips across jaundiced marauders -- thinking aloud sparingly and seeking asylum from the quick tongue peering eyes -- counting the grains of sand that have passed through my hands and transliminal, shrill-pitched nightmare flashes ebbing instantaneously where nothing forms, just the noise and the scorn - whittled down to the hand-wringing fever fits ill never have and sick crisco icing coating the tongue with that fake aftertaste, false blood -- the bloodcurdling chorus murderscreams as daylight fantasies play out a million winding seeds

little victory

2008-03-13T04:05:56Z

my lover wants to wander with me, but makes certain not to love me. that was the arrangement.

a smile crept across my lips after a three hour phone call with my cousin culminated in the appearance of a window on the screen with a small rectangle drawn in the upper corner. baby steps. now, the mouse listener must be analyzed and comprehended.

most of my classes are wasting my time.

tomorrow night ill be in chicago, celebrating the rising stars and some tattered dreams.

far less animal and egg in the diet has lowered my blood pressure immensely -- when loud noises wake me up, i dont hear my heart trying to pump through my stomach. also, my daily skirmish with anxieties seems to have vanished. im not even exercising regularly, but my sanity has been better than ever. it is what it eats.

upon the nutrient substrate, the microbes might reach a buffered equilibrium.
You don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in
in about a month, someones going to need to get me a chick magnet.

we beat penicillin!

2008-02-02T02:18:47Z

muddled victory

a letter was issued yesterday to inform me that i passed both of my qualifiers. i just earned a summer.

but the victory was robbed of its syrup when i found that my partner in analytic crimes didnt pass his exam. i had the impression that he was more competent that me -- that the exam would yield to him easily if it yielded to me at all.

i picked up the letter from celeste right before i had to teach linear algebra. there was no time to read it before i answered some questions from my students and passed out a quiz. a smile hit my lips. during the next section, i was about to send a text message to andy -- 'Congrats.' but i didnt because i wasnt certain he passed.

the experience reveals the arbitrary character of qualifiers and the flimsy structure of my certainty.

and now

computer nerdery

ubuntu is installed on my new hard drive. my old hard drive has been really unstable, so i decided id make a swap. ubuntu is pretty simple to understand even if one is a partial dumbass like me. if the internet works, all one needs to know is how to enter in a query and where to click a button to install packages. linux used to be on my computer about five years ago, but this distribution is much easier to handle.

i have almost exactly the same functionality of windows on my system without the massive bloat.

classes

king convinced me to stick with algebra even though i wanted to sleep until nine or ten every day. damn voice of reason. benedetto is teaching me frames. some of the material is new, and some is old but from a different perspective. its actually engaging. also, im taking representation theory. the instructor (jeffery adams) is basically teaching us how to understand the algorithm behind the newsworthy E_8 computation. surfer/physicist garret lisi has used this knowledge of E_8 to construct a theory of everything. highly speculative? yes.

research

mostly top secret. some random matrix theory with king is supposed to occur, but i fell off the pony this week. im also trying to mop up after some of my old research, but first i have to get advice from benedetto...

life

more on this later.

these are not those and we are not them

2008-01-18T03:35:59Z

ten hours of solid study every day for three weeks. over two hundred problems solved. net result: two slim victories/near misses. i get to find out in a month. so *that* happened.

the dull background noise of loneliness and depression peaked at christmas -- but a lot of little things helped ease the malaise. sharing the treatment with good cavorting cohorts lifted my spirit. my parents also sent a care package of indian m.r.e.s and the florida family sent a shipment of forty citrus fruits.

patron! dunhill! nat sherman! alcohol, tobacco, and shooting my mouth off for an entire night after the last qualifier! today was full of glorious retching! soused, we trod into d.c. and light up our dull lives with karaoke! i sang 'foolish games' for andy and rodrigo.

You were fashionably sensitive, but too cool to care

at the height of my inebriation, i was lost in d.c. and engrossed in a conversation with a highly adorable syrian student of architecture. im a sucker for a sweet face that wants me to explain consequences, perceptions, and reality.

tomorrow, the mars volta in baltimore. :)

qualifying exams

2007-12-19T16:16:12Z

analysis on january 14. numerical on january 16. i have less than a month to prepare. see you then.

my life passing you by

2007-12-01T03:17:47Z

rip van winkle or twin paradox?

im incommunicado for the next month and a half. nothing escapes the black hole. afterwards, perhaps a white hole. i have my doubts.

friends en vogue places; lucky motherfucker

2007-10-20T21:01:54Z

how do you get to carnegie hall?

my friend debuted at carnegie on tuesday. when she was at rice, i could easily uproot to go see a concert or opera, but then she moved to new york. since im now within a drive-to-dallas distance of new york, i decided i could make it there for this rare and wonderful occasion.

i had about three weeks to prepare.

first, exceptional times call for exceptional attire. a search led me to etro. the collection boasts sharp and distinctive suits. by a stroke of fortune, their location is close to carnegie on manhattan island.

second, the bouquet. flower bouquets are unimaginative, so i began researching origami lotus (the lotus is the symbol of the association sponsoring her) constructions and i bought sheet music by debussy and rachmaninoff for the medium.

finally, strategy. map to etro. maps to parking garages near etro. maps to carnegie. maps to parking garages near carnegie. maps to coffee shops near parking garages near carnegie. the plan was: roll up to etro by 4. finish by 5. park near carnegie and do math at a coffee shop to kill time before the concert.

no matter how much you prepare...

though i ordered two weeks in advance, the sheet music did not come in until today. i put the lotus on back burner (a good christmas present...). on monday night, i downloaded some audio books for the drive (a history of western music and treatise on satre). yesterday morning i put things together after my early lectures. i printed out all the maps, caught a bus home, and prepared a lunch for the road.

the drive was uninteresting. toll fees reached about $16. upon entrance to new jersey, one is privy to a vast expanse of industrial spires emitting god-knows-what. also, one is assaulted by the schizophrenic pipe jungle gym of a monkey-octopus demigod hybrid. the garden state my ass.

eventually, i made it to manhattan and started picking my way through the directions. first fuck up: map quest and googlemaps are not robust with respect to overloaded street names. oh, it may be 59th street on the directions, but the road sign will say central park south. instead, i cut through the center of central park. eventually i landed at a parking garage and picked my way to etro.

as i was driving, my car gave a pitiful beep. the one remaining bar of fuel began to blink.

etro

three spacious stories of fine italian design: accessories, mens', and womens'. i gathered that the fourth floor was for managerial and design purposes. a variety of prismatic shawls greeted me on the first floor. the entire place was lavishly ornate with strategically mottled burnt orange carpeting, a multitude of recesses from which various lighting scenarios erupted, and elegant corner molds for the ceilings. A bronze elevator was set in the south side of the building.

i perused nervously for a few moments before i began speaking with julion. having gay men help you pick out a suit is a recipe for success. i pointed out the suit that had caught my fancy. he pulled it off the mannequin and opened a mirror door to the orange changing room. orange rope decorated the edges of the mirrors. it fit well -- the cuffs were a bit too long and since the debut was that night, there was no time to slap on a hem (a good christmas present from my mommy...!). i picked out a white shirt with an embroidered pattern that evokes visions of biohazard fairies.

so basically, i picked up a black and white number from a designer renown for colorful collections.

while i was trying the suit on, a tall/dark/handsome man in a leather jacket rolled up and began sifting through suit jackets. when asked for help, he declined. by contrast, i had only a slight grasp of what i was doing. then a man descended from the elevator with a popped collar on his long black coat. throw in the sunglasses and it seems he had just stepped off the yacht. finally, i left as a couple entered and the woman began choosing garments for him.

as julion taped and pinned the hem, i inquired about a gas station. he used the inner building line to contact a woman who thought that finding a gas station near madison avenue was the funniest thing she had ever heard. but then all the five clerks began to help me on my mission. they made some phone calls and gave me an intersection.

china town salvation

at the intersection, i somehow got onto the queensboro bridge. the final fuel bar continued to blink furiously as i passed exit after exit. alarm started to overwhelm me. i remembered julion saying something about how gas stations were on 1st street as well as by bridges, so i let the bridge take me from 63rd street to 4th. after some more navigational dice rolls, i ended up in china town. suddenly, my car started to shudder. i really didnt want to push my car around in china town while angry new yorkers honked and yelled at me. signs for manhattan bridge eventually brought me to a mobil station.

so i had gas, but i was lost in china town. i pulled out the trusty $1 nascar atlas -- sure enough, there was manhattan island. white trash ingenuity saved the day! for the next thirty minutes, i made my way back up to 56th street and parked near carnegie.

the concert

sixth row tickets awaited me along with an invitation to the reception. i took two escalators down to my seat and waited. the gentleman to my right had seen sasha in performances and found her voice extraordinary. the house slowly filled as i leafed through the playbill.

a blue velvet train ornamented by pinched diamond folds followed sasha as she emerged. her red hair was now short and banged. her pianist, pei-yao, followed closely behind in a gray blouse. applause thundered until the duo opened with four songs by samuel barber.

with my uncultivated music appreciation, i was unable to truly comprehend the work. the best i could hope for was some primitive emotional flares, and these came in waves. at the climax of nocturne, my spine vibrated and filled me with tingling warmth
none to watch us, none to warn
after the barber, they left and reentered to applause. the somber barber yielded to the whimsical francis poulenc, and sasha's face glittered with mischievious expression. poulenc gave way to the melancholy of mahler. the usual fog of my contacts became crystal clear as my eyes moistened with the emotion. then the hedonism of debussy and poems of langston hughes composed by john musto. she concluded with rachmaninoff, which she dedicated to her mother for her birthday.

during the intermission, i spoke with sasha's mother and an old high school friend. my old friend had just moved to new york to start a law job. she had no invitation to the reception, so i told her that she could be my date.

the russian tea room

first off, ive little to no business in a place where you can easily drop 6k on a meal -- a place that serves $300 an ounce caviar -- but fuck it! my friend and i tromped up to the fourth floor where gold and red abound. i resisted at the sight of an open bar and a stream of constant horsdeouvres, taking in only a dark baltica and whatever protein passed my way.

in this lavish setting, my friend and i discussed her living arrangements. in specific, she explained her acquisition of a headboard from her grandmother's estate and also the sofa doctor that gets unwieldy sofas into apartments.

sasha entered and we managed to get in a hug and a photo before a stream of admirers overwhelmed her. to pass the time, i spoke with members of the young concert artists corporation, sasha's mother, sister, and former roommate. every so often, sasha would grab me by the arm and bring me into her conversations. she told me that she had been telling people that i was her first love. i quickly reminded her that she was the one to turn me down when i wanted to date her -- over aim no less. she didnt remember.

i took a moment to examine some ancient foot prints.

the night wound down, and sasha gave me a kiss on the cheek before being whisked away by a taxi van and her entourage.

the drive home felt very long, but i made it by 4am. i immediately collapsed on my bed.

to juice or to sauce?

2007-10-14T03:44:16Z

upon landing i started to inquire about food and cooking cooperation amongst my roommates. potentially, the process could save us all time and money. objections immediately rained from the heavens -- mathematicians keep odd hours and cannot commit to a weekly cooking time (until three weeks ago, i was certain that simple time management could overcome this obstacle... and then i had to put two talks together). since communism seemed a failure from the get-go, i suggested a greed-laden alternative: everyone starts with 'food credit' and can exchange credits for public foodstuffs.

well, that didnt fukkin work. two people never even participated -- one is on atkins and the other one seems to live on sandwich meats and buttfunk. another roommate's culinary capabilities involve 'hamburger helper' and still another specializes in soul-desiccating vegan slop. after providing one of my standard meals (so simple and yet deliciousness -- brown rice, black beans, and fried tofu topped with an avacado-tomato-onion mixture (cheese optional-- mozzarella)) without credit compensation, i stopped making biweekly meals for public consumption.

capitalism failed me when i needed it the most.

i started taking cod liver oil capsules in the mornings. mmmmm. cod liver oil burps.... mmmmm

bak on da poni

2007-09-24T01:35:18Z

getting to md

having landed in college park on the 20th of august, im now halfway through the tank of gas i purchased that night.

mid transit, the trucker laden roads flickered by, punctuated by porn megastore billboards (trucker friendly). arch enemy urination bedeviled my first day of flight. excruciating pressure tortured while wild nashville roads merged through manslaughter circles. with only street signs as my bread crumbs, a vain search ended with doubling back as the lane name changed. final relief came in a carpeted bathroom once marta and sebastian arrived.

a tour of vanderbilt commenced as soon as marta's kitchen wall received proper attention. the long drive instilled a craving for beer, so i assisted to indirectly expedite stress reduction. we joined with tommy (marta's norwegian musician boyfriend) and headed to bbq. catfish is delicious.

highlights of the next day included authentic korean food (kimchi addict) and a 6 beer tasting at blackstone brewery (D-fuckin-licious). the wheat beer had an aftertaste that reminded me of candy bananas. still, i preferred the rich dark beer with the nutty aftertaste.

and then i drank way too much and smoked too many marlboro reds. the drive the next day was excruciating. i kept hydration minimal so as to avoid frequent stopping, but i had to pull over to get some bc powder when a headache began to rage behind my brow.

verdent mountain sides flanked me through virginia. as i entered dc, night began to fall. my tank reached empty and i met its demands. in ten minutes, i was at my new home. my roommate handed me a key and i set about unpacking.

the next day, i met david bourne (now at the max planck instutite). his speech and bearing reminded me of salad fingers. fuckin creepy.

food

when i first arrived i was experimenting with food stuffs -- i made beer battered sweet potatoes for a tapas party (yeah, i know), but this was a first test of my frying skills. the chips were soggy, but tasty. i made an onion dip to go with, but decided later that a raspberry dip might have been betterness. with a lot of sweet potato on hand, i put together a sweet potato and chorizo dish. borsch was my next experiment. beef, red cabbage, red onion, and lots of garlic. the red onion was over powering the first day, but it lost its potency as i kept eating on it.

success

i barely passed the topology/geometry qualifier. hopefully i can knock the last two out this january.

politics

my prius currently sports a ron paul bumper sticker. i agree with him about 80% of the time.

you have got to be shitting in my grave.

protruding forks

2007-08-02T18:14:38Z

cs is about done with -- this saturday marks my effective departure, but it will be another week before i leave behind the overgrowth and clutterfuck of my parents' property. im really just glad to have finally escaped cs. the insular environment has kept me dull, complacent, and prone to gawk at 20+ story buildings.

if nature has any sense of humor, it will slaughter me on the drive up to maryland. and if i do die, someone please come up with a humanist dirge instead of the 'jesus this, jesus that' bit. and also play 'dont dream its over' by crowed house -- on repeat for the entire service.

there is no place that feels like home. the time for nostalgia is not yet near, so FUCK CS!!! mailboxes yielding to the blunt trauma of an empty ketel one bottle! broken homes and broken hymens left in my wake! yargh!!!

the qualifier is on monday and im still working out gaps in my knowledge. ive been taking about two old quals a day and i can generally work four and two halves of the problems in about two hours. then i hit a wall -- but each successive wall has informed me of an amendable gap. It takes the remaining two hours to get a final half of a problem. invariably, there is a problem that i simply dont have the capacity to tackle. my major weakness involves the computation of cohomology rings. im also afraid of having to pull various counterexamples out my butt, as this is time consuming.

sparse approximations and high dimensional geometry

2007-06-11T17:36:51Z

kan rolled into town on the 28th and suggested an afternoon binge. we carried this out at fitzwilly's and drunk-dialed a number of people. after kan started to nod off, i forced him into the car and drove back to sweet eugenes. outside, we met a turkish grad named samid and blared depeche mode until the siren song of half-price books lured us away.

as the drink wore off, i packed for the math workshop in LA. the next day was uneventful, but i did talk with bagel's father. he was on his way to los alamos. it is strange to consider the fate of his child. bagel acquired his nuclear engineering degree, found a job, and then drank himself into rehab. now his mentor is a former olympic skeet shooter that hs embraced the bohemian lifestyle.

that evening, i met up with katie, doug, nick, and chris. katie and doug are getting married in january. of all the ladies on fslip, id have to say that katie was my favorite. she took a lot of shit with good humor, and kept a constant cheerful demeanor. she kicked me in anger just the once. i had criticized her fake orgasm in 'sex starved monkeys'.

we landed at a posh bar with a massive (and questionable) overhang. doug picked his way steadily through a pack of camel lights. i met doug after the big show in 2000. he is a master of references first and foremost, but he has also perfected his craft by developing numerous characters and focusing on commitment. during our ski trip to snow mass, he lagged behind to make sure i was keeping up. then i broke my wrist. nicky c sat to my left as we reminisced. chris sat across from me and drank new castle. i laughed uncontrollably to the tune of casey's strange sleep incontinence.

we parted ways and the next two days were spent in a building designed by gehry on ucla campus. lecturers filled six hours of each day with the mathematical underpinnings of fast probablistic signal recovery. after the lectures concluded, mathematicians would lounge and drink from the open bar. i enjoyed the company of mathemagicians on wednesday and thursday night.

on friday night, i planned to attend 'an impedning rupture of the belly' at the furious theatre. two buses led the way to pasadena, but the second went out of service as soon as it arrived. i called a taxi company immediately. they needed an address, so i went onto a side street. a car parked across the street rolled up and the phillipino driver began to talk with me. after an exchange, he offered to drive me to pasadena.

a number of things clued me into his homosexual proclivities as we conversed in the car. the main thing is that he was touchy feely, but his references to my 'energy' and 'glow' were also suspect. after a forty minute drive, we came upon my stop and he pulled over to talk. he touched my hair. i expressed my appreciation verbally and offered to pay for the gas. he declined the compensation and went in for a hug -- slow pat with kisses on the shoulder. i said that i was late for the play and left the car while thanking him for the ride.

the last thirty minutes of the play were very good. afterwards, i related my hitchhiking adventure to everyone as we drank. i met some people from the jet propulsion laboratories. i drank a lot. as we began to depart, we hugged and shoulder kissed to cackling laughter.

dan drove me to hollywood where we met up with a government contractor and a girl thats been stringing the both of them along. i couldnt stand her. the government contractor was a very interesting person. as we discussed nonlinear pdes and existence, dan and the girl did coke in the other room and fooled around. then she returned to sit on the gc's lap. dan's uncle had died that day, and i felt powerless to console him.
leave it to the mathematician to say what im thinking
i met up with calcal and we talked about his kafka project and editing algorithms. dan eventually drove me back to my hotel. the next day i was miserable. i saw ward off and then slept on the planes until i made it back to college station.

tmi

2007-05-14T05:04:50Z

im enrolled at the University of Maryland and im getting a phd. ill be taking complex analysis, algebra, numerical analysis, a topics course, and a teaching class in the fall. my main goal is to blitz through qualifiers. to this end, ill take the topology and geometry qualifier this august after moving to college park in late july/early august. in the fall/winter, i will eschew human existence and rip through the eventually numerical analysis and analysis qualifiers. moreover, i will be applying for summer internships/workshops.

in the mean time, im being distracted by an intricate tapestry of concerns. participating in abstract whack-a-mole accomplishes *nothing*. it just deprives me of sleep and time.

depletion of resources, desecration of the environment, obesity epidemic, declining fish and populations, deregulation, colony collapse disorder, genetically modified crops, razing of a chinese factory prior to inspection, boom to bust. we need some robust ecological modeling to help people visualize an ecological collapse. sufficient fear will curb self destructive gluttony. it would also be nice to have an idea of how a local ecology might function after an arbitrary agent is introduced.

dont solve the problem, just make it look like it is being solved or will be solved in the future. 2/3 of the oil consumed in the us is used for transportation. less than 1/3 of emissions comes from transportation. increase fuel efficiency and obtain no appreciable emissions reduction. increasing fuel efficiency reduces oil demand, which in turn devalues the dollar (not backed by anything substantial, just an agreement that all oil should be priced in dollars -- iran pissed off the us by pricing it in euros, a move that iraq tried earlier).

there is a massive market for photovoltaics, but there is a shortage of high grade silicon. photoelectric pigments via massey u of new zealand present a way to circumvent the high up-front costs of solar arrays.

the theme at the 05 world expo in nagoya was environmental. many nations had exhibits detailing their accomplishments and also described how they were addressing environmental concerns. the us exhibit featured a short video starring benjamin franklin. at some point, the crowd was subjected to a cartoon rendering of nanomachines extracting pollutants from the rain and atmosphere. after being sprayed with a mist, the crowd moved into an area displaying a timeline of us ingenuity -- kitty hawk to the apollo missions. further down from this lavish display, a fuel cell water heater and car sat.

an illusionary solution meant to curtail thought.

religion still has people strapping mass homicide to their hearts and conspiring to rid the world of secular freedoms. the faithful voices leading the charge against the zealots on religious grounds are misguided. they cry foul on inhumane acts that are not sanctioned by *their* god. the vocal atheists lead the charge against both camps without articulating an exit strategy from faith that leaves morality and culture intact. but they all commit atrocities against rationality and empiricism by assigning a truth value to a statement concerning entities existing beyond this universe.

long story short: no power, *very* concerned, more problems than robust solutions.

ive seen some movies:

spiderman 3: eye candy, tobey mcguire gets into evil spiderman (the only acting in the movie).

28 weeks later: this is what happens when military personnel dont follow orders and you give civilians waaaaaay too much access to military facilities. a little damn sense = victory against even the most vicious of zombie hordes.

less is morbid

2007-05-10T17:49:30Z

its over. i should be receiving my masters tomorrow morning (assuming that some previous version of me kept up with the paperwork...). ive got 2.5 months to prep for the topology qualifier. housing has been arranged -- ill be living on fox street in college park sometime in late july or early august.

qua

2007-05-09T07:29:02Z

who gives at ratz ash -- lets not turn this into an arthur miller play

you cant just decide that im drunk -- thats between me and god
saw mary charlotte at break-even-through-poor-fiscal-planning-tion. her boyfriend at the back reading a book while she sang her heart out for the upteenthzillion time. lets not turn this into a thing. gays write 'l's in a very different manner. they look like 's'es.

listen -- im not what you perceive me to be -- perceptions need to go in the first place -- its just a corollary to extend that courtesy to me.

is the universe inherently fucked? more concretely, is there a robust utopian ethical system?

too drunk, tooo tired, ill leave this to you to sort out...

natie_pie @ 2007-04-23T22:59:00

2007-04-24T05:18:36Z

tragically scattered preacher of time management

$$$ and i were having a fleeting conversation

I want to know what our future together is going to look like. For instance, if you don't move to Chicago... we're through.
the last line was a joke. a funny joke because its the truth. when i started revealing umd's acceptance letter to pockets of individuals, fragile attachment cords ruptured and my heart began to suffocate in the depths.

waxing isolation, palpable microlapses in conversation, the horse blinders

but ive never been one to let emotions get in the way of a master plan. ive got definitions floating around in my head and impenetrable documents to draft.

lj posts should always involve liquor

2007-03-24T06:06:51Z

tonight i met an ex-marine of the uk. apparently, he was part of a three member team that laid out the uk's invasion of iraq. in the battalion he was pictured with his baby holding a sign:
babies need peas
this was in protest of tony snow's visit to the bush library.

ive been nursing a desire to get high in the broad day light. its an old feeling -- i need to see if ive outgrown it. i dont think ive outgrown drinking myself into sardonic cruelty.

im finally getting a car in my own name -- a 2003 prius.

finding good data and statistical analysis on global warming is difficult. the hunt continues. the latest ipcc report will be out soon.

brief survey of the valley during a long ascent

2007-03-11T05:23:03Z

the thesis defense is over -- ive only some code to comment, polish, and add as an appendix. one of my committee members has a broken arm and leg, so i went over to his house to give him an overview of the thesis. i can't say that he absorbed anything that i presented.

about a month and a half ago, i added some soy milk to the cart while my mother was shopping at the asian grocery. since then, she's been experimenting with vegan cuisine -- making her own soy milk, vegan cupcakes, okara-laced bread, and a host of bean sprout dishes. her method for cooking lentils has been perfected to the point that the bean integrity is no longer compromised. as a consequence of this restructured diet, she has been losing weight and her dosage of blood pressure medication has tapered dramatically. it makes me happy.

last saturday i cut my hair from about 18 inches to 4 inches. it has made life a little more simple.

losing streak

2007-03-02T04:52:16Z

im half way to chicago. there is something intrinsically satisfying about receiving rejection after rejection from top tier schools. the kind words of the rejection emails really deaden the neurochemical pang. they even offer to send a letter if you want a tangible copy of your inadequacy -- the kind of thing you'd like to frame and show off to friends and family.

theres a hole through 10-15% of my eardrum. i havent even kissed a woman in six months. ive missed a million calls, ive missed a million birthdays, im planning on doing homework all through spring break, the bathroom is a mess, papers and books and clothes cover every part of my room, i hate the dog (oh god, how i hate that dog), and ive chosen all of this (except for the dog, how i hate that dog). to make matters worse, enya's lips are way too fucking red in the caribbean blue video.

meh

2007-02-04T04:05:44Z

as modules over SO(n), it turns out that the space of riemannian tensors decomposes into a submodule isomorphic to S^2(V) and a conformally invariant submodule, weyl. writing down the explicit projection occupied my days this past week. this pursuit would probably have occupied even more of my time if my family consisted purely of calm rationals. instead, escalation of tensions yielded a scene and i ended up explaining my parents' harmless emotional immaturity to the police. it only took six more hours of persistent logic punctuated by damning ultimatums to locate and neutralize the culpable misconceived perception harbored by my little brother. in hindsight, i was fully aware that this storm was brewing and i should have squelched the insurrection before it manifested.

it is truly a nuisance when things are blown out of proportion.

my last application was sent off this past week. im slowly getting through my thesis. i just want to get out of this town. out. for good.