Mike got a raise. :-)

Mike got a raise! In particular, a big fat raise. When I start my new job, there will only be a couple thousand dollars between us, instead of the comfortable $12,000 I had been gloating about. Mike's review (which he got on Tuesday) went okay, not great. So, the big fat raise was a nice surprise!

Many of you have asked how my thesis is going. Let's just say, we'll talk about it when I'm ready to talk about it. Right now, I have spent the past several (4, 5?) weeks getting the user input system working properly. So, you have the tiles, and you have the balls. You hold up a ball, and the tiles talk amongst themselves about who should have the cursor. Then, a cursor appears on one of the tiles, and as you move around, the cursor passes from tile to tile. And, when you do things, like make gestures, all of the tiles know, even when only one tile saw what happened. This all sounds so simple when I summarize, and it even seemed kinda simple when I was writing it. Yeah, a huge big mess of lots of simple problems with competing solutions. That sounds like distributed computing in a nutshell!

I realize that this was my goal for the week two weeks ago. Last week, Monday, I had meant to just tie up some loose ends and be done with this. But, one small problem led to another small problem, and I could probably go on for months fixing all the small problems with the system. But, i have declared today the cutoff day. No more problems are going to get solved, unless they are emergencies. Period. Now, on to the simulator.....

After the wedding last weekend, Barbie and Jason came down to Boston to leave from Logan. They needed to do some laundry before they left, so they did it at our house, so we could visit. Jason said that our apartment was cool. :-) I don't remember exactly what he said, something about our apartment taking his apartment to school. I think. Anyway, I don't remember what he said, but it was very funny. We went to get dinner at the Cheesecake factory, and we invited our crazy friend Nuno. Mike and I were slightly concerned that they might clash, but it was great! They were soooo funny.

Nuno is moving to Providence this Saturday. He is going to do a PhD at Brown University. He likes hardware-ish embedded devices and that sort of thing. This is kinda sad, because I won't be able to summon him to Harvard at the drop of a hat (or find him already at Harvard, as the case may be), but I am sure we will still see him.

My friend Ben Waber from Boston University is getting married soon. I've known about this for some time now, and for some reason, I thought he was getting married in Boston, and I was excited to go to his wedding (I've never been to a Jewish wedding before). But, alas, it is in Philadelphia, and so I will not be able to go. So, he and Rebecca are having a dinner party on Sunday for people who can't go to the wedding in Philadelphia.

Finally, for those of you who I didn't tell, or who were wondering what the "almost engaged" business was at the wedding... A thousand apologies for not putting it on sooner. Easter weekend, Mike and I went to Barmakian jewelers in Framingham, and he bought the ring. :-D I was thinking I was gonna be all cool about it, and just put up a picture of my hand, wearing the ring, when I finally got it or something. But no. So, that's what all this is about.

The Barmakian jewelers store in Framingham is HUGE!! It is like two stories tall, and maybe the floor size of a good-sized CVS. It was HUGE! When I told my advisor about the ring shopping adventure the weekend before, he said "Oh, have you gone to the Jewelry Exchange?" and I said "What is that?" It is an agglomeration of jewelry stores in downtown Boston. I found a little, dinky Barmakian jewelers in the Jewelry Exchange, and they made me feel comfortable. And when I saw they had a location in Framingham, I figured that would be more convenient for Mike.

Oh, and finally (this time for real), my vegetables are coming up! I planted vegetables in the little plot next to the house a couple weeks ago, and now, the onions and garlic are surely poking their little heads up (which is exciting because I've never planted onions or garlic before) and now, the peas are starting to come up. I hope the tomatoes come up and the cold weather didn't kill them. If it did, then I will buy tomato plants and put them in. I planted 3 kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, jalepeno peppers, onions, garlic, and peas. I will see about doing the flower bed this weekend. I am going to do zinnias and larkspur with alyssum and lobelia. So excited!

Check it out!

How to Tie your shoes
Who knew there could be such an extensive knowledge about how to tie shoes???
Thank you, internet!

Holy Moley!

I can't believe its been almost a month since I last posted! Sorry everybody!

Yesterday, I got my Brass Rat. This is the MIT Ring. It is not really brass -- it is gold. And it is not really a rat -- it is a beaver. Or, there is a picture of a beaver on the bezel of the ring. There is also a map of MIT on the inside of the ring. And The Boston and MIT skylines on either side of the ring. I also got a silly walnut box to put it in. I figured that if I was going to spend $400 on this silly ring, I might as well spend the $12 on the little box with the MIT crest on it. I didn't get a ring from BU, but the MIT ring has a lot more character. The main picture on the ring is a beaver holding a scroll and a piece of pizza, among other things. The BU ring would have just been a stone with my graduation year on it.

My landlord is in town. He just got here today. He lives in Florida. His son has been occupying the apartment above us (which was previously occupied by his mother, but she died in December, a month before we moved in.) They are now renovating the upstairs apartment so someone else can move in. I have managed to procure rights to plant in most of the back yard. Well, I didn't really "manage to procure" so much as I said I wanted to plant things, and they told me to go right ahead. I am very pleased about this. I plan to do tomatoes and cucumbers in the sunny side, and some flowers (poppies and larkspur, I think, with some lobelia and moss roses) in the bed with the roses.

Today, I got one of my research goals accomplished that I have been trying to accomplish for the past three weeks. Really, this was the goal I was trying to accomplish back in January, when I got derailed by the nonsense with my thesis proposal. So, get this. The tiles are looking at you, and you hold up a ball. Instead of all of the tiles grabbing it -- they now talk to each other to agree about who should have it. Tomorrow, they should be able to pass control of the cursor, representing the ball, amongst themselves, so that as you move the ball around, it can go seamlessly from tile to tile. This is my goal for this week.

Over the weekend, Mike and I did a little car shopping. I will need a car when I start my new job, come September. We first went to the Toyota dealership. The Corolla is cute, but didn't grab me. Then, we went to the Honda dealership. We had read on Consumer Reports about the strange layout of the Civic dashboard. I wanted to see this for myself, and I thought I would hate it. I actually liked it quite a lot. I had a very good connection with the girl at the Honda dealership, and they took me seriously, even though I said I wasn't buying. Last, we went to the Volkswagon dealership and I drove a Jetta. I responded negatively to the ergonomics of the Jetta, although it was much spunkier than the Civic. But, on the other hand, to get the Civic with the moon roof and other silliness, is the same price as the "value" Jetta. I decided that what I wanted is a Civic with a bigger engine. They make such a thing -- it is called the Accord. I looked online, and it seems that I can get an Accord with a moonroof, heated seats, heated side mirrors, and all the other silly things I could possibly want for the low, low price of $25,000. Now, don't laugh, but I am seriously considering this. I got 2 phone calls from the Honda dealership on Monday -- neither Toyota nor Volkswagon called. I told the saleswoman about how I thought I might want an Accord, but Michael took issue with how much I have suddenly become willing to spend on a car with silly heated seats. She pointed out that there are lots of nice pre-owned Accords I might buy. I said I would think about it. So, maybe we will go back this week sometime, and I will test drive an Accord and see if I like it. I will start looking at pre-owned vehicles closer to the time when I will actually want a vehicle -- late July, August.

Over the weekend, Mike and I also did *TRUMPETS BLARE AND DRUMS AND CHOIRS SINGING* a little ring shopping. *SHHHHHHHHHHH*. We went to the Burlington Mall, where there are only 3 jewelry stores -- I could have sworn there were more. We went into Both Zales and Alpha Omega. At Zales, there wasn't really anything for me. At Alpha Omega, everything seemed over-priced, and there was really only a couple options for me. The third jewelry store was Kay, but Mike *hates* their "every Kiss begins with Kay" ad campaign, and he doesn't want to buy from them. Last June, when I worked near the Cambridgeside Galleria, I had done a little shopping at the Whitehall, and I had brought home a catalog with various options circled. But I eventually tossed the catalog after Mike only looked at it when the cable got turned off and I said I would call to have it fixed if he looked at the catalog. There was this adorable ring they were doing last year -- it had three white diamonds in the center, and then yellow saphires down the sides. It was so cute! I wonder if they still have it.

Oh, and I am definately not going to graduate this term. :-( This is not doom and gloom -- I took my name off the degree list. My office mate, Jim, who is way further behind than I am on his thesis, intends to graduate this term. I have no idea how he is going to pull it off. But, I am not going to pull it off, and I will not get to walk. :-( I will probably be done around the end of June.