7.11.2006

173 pages and 1000+ miles

My thesis, in its nearly final version, has weighed in at a whopping 173 pages. Anyone who wants to help me out by giving me feedback, now is a great time! http://web.media.mit.edu/~dhirsh/thesis/

My advisor said "It looks a lot like a thesis! Let's discuss it Friday morning."
Argh! Friday! What am I going to do with myself for 2 days! I feel like I can't make revisions, because then his remarks will be out of date. I can't program because then my whole document will be out of date. All I can do is clean my office! Argh!

In other news, my car passed 1000 miles old on our way back from Maine on Saturday. I got it from the dealer with 136 miles on it (I guess it went on a few test drives), so I haven't put 1000 miles on it myself yet, but I am getting there with the odometer presently reading 1054 miles. It is on its third tank of gas, if I am not mistaken. I got it from the dealer with a full tank, and I have filled the tank twice (although the tank was at about 3/4 both times.)

This weekend, Mike and I are going on the Mathworks summer outing. Its to Vermont or New Hampshire, some where. Should be fun.

7.03.2006

I bought a car!

A Honda Accord EX-L, in silver. That is the car that has heated mirrors, leather seats, heated front seats, power driver seat controls... The key fob can lock, unlock, pop the trunk, and roll down the windows all from a distance of like 50 ft. away.

Me and my new car. What should I name it?
The front of the car
The back of the car
Inside the car, complete with a soda bottle and my purse!

I bought the car Saturday. I had initially done my car shopping way back in April. I looked at the Honda Civic, the Toyota Corolla, and the Volkswagon Jetta. My favorite of these was the Civic, although its engine was a bit wimpier than I could bear. So, I decided that what I wanted was an Accord. I needed to get the car before I start my job (Sept. 5), and I had been told that a good time to do it might be around July 4th, when there might be all kinds of specials. I don't know if I got the most amazingest deal ever on this car, but I got it for less than their first offer, and just a bit more than what I wanted it for. I knew that I wanted an Accord EX-l with a 4 cylinder engine when I walked in. The only concern was about the color. Silver is the color I wanted, but Mike's car is silver, and I thought it would just be too disgusting if we had matching silver cars. So, I go around and around if I want the "desert mist" or the "charcoal" colored cars. I settled on the desert mist, but when I got my price down, it was on the condition that I took the EX-L that was in stock, which happened to be silver. I guess God wanted us to have matching silver cars.

This morning, our task was to get insurance. Initially, we went to AAA in Newton, but the guy there was REALLY MEAN. Like, he made me want to cry. Someone at the dealership had forgotten to give me the bill of sale. When I told this guy that I didn't have it, and didn't they have some magic system where the dealership had already sent the information. (They do, by the way; it is called the Drive program. It just wasn't as magic as I thought it was.) He looked at me like I was nuts and talked to me like I was an idiot. He sent us back to the dealership for the bill of sale. So, we get to the dealership, and when Mike sees the salesperson, he walks towards the guy with PURPOSE. I called after him -- I didn't want things to get ugly. So, I explained to the salesperson what had happened, and he said that it was just a mistake that it hadn't been given to me, and he had it in his office. Problem solved. So now, no WAY are we going back to the jerk at AAA. So, we tried a couple of local insurance people's offices. They were all closed for July 3rd. So, I went to Commerce's website (Mike's insurance is Commerce) and called down the list of insurance agents until I found one that was open. The person we bought insurance from was named Vicki, with Guard Insurance Agency, and she was very nice. So, I guess its good that the Honda dealership forgot to give use the bill of sale, or we would have bought insurance from that jerk.

So, I took delivery of the car today at about 5:30. When we got it home, we knew we had to take it for a drive somewhere, and Mike said "I don't know if I feel like going all the way out to six flags." After some hemming and hawing, that is precisely what we did. I thought it would be fun -- we would drive 2 hours to get there, have 2 hours to ride roller coasters before the park closed, but everyone would have gone home so we could actually ride them instead of waiting in line, and then drive 2 hours back. Well, on the way there, we hit a massive traffic snarl in Springfield of all places. So, we got to the park just in time to see the closing fireworks, and then turn around and go home. We plan to try again tomorrow, the crowds be what they may.

P.S. My thesis is 145 pages