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Thursday, June 30, 2005

the Commute 

I wanted to have some photos to put up by now, but don't. A couple of things have gotten in the way. First, my computer finally finished dying this past weekend. The other is that all the other computers I have access to, I share with several other people. This has made both saving photos and uploading them difficult. I'm working on it.

I was going to put up a nice image of my daily commute to work, but I can't get the image to come out the way I want it to be. The closest I can get right now is the Google Map of Santiago. Zoom in one step from that map. The large park on the west (left) end of the image is Parque O'Higgins. Work is is the first building at the northeast corner of Parque O'Higgins. The stadium on the east (right) end of the image is Estadio Nacional. Home is just over 1 km north of Estadio Nacional. The distance between home and work is about 4 km.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

Arrival 

I arrived in Santiago Thursday morning. Sergio Rica met me at the airport, and drove me to the Residencia. We picked out a room for me, and dropped off my bags. Nathan was up, and was just about to leave. He's working at Universidad de Santiago; the rest of us are at Universdiad de Chile. So we let him head off to work alone. Matt and Carolyn showed up soon after. Sergio had offered me a ride to the University, but we all thought it might be better if Matt and Carolyn could show me how to get there. So we did that.

That first day was mostly Nicolas and Sergio showing me around, and checking up on the apparatus I'm going to be using. There was also an introduction to the normal daily schedule around the University. We showed up around 10:30 in the morning. At 11:30, we went for coffee. That took about an hour. We then looked around for a paper that Matt needed for his project. That took until lunch, at 1:30. Immediately after lunch, we went for coffee again. We returned to work at about 3:00. We left at 5:00.

Roughly the same deal on Friday, though there was a Cantanta that evening at the University. Matt and I stayed for that; it was excellent.

This weekend is a long weekend; tomorrow is a national holiday. Our plan had been to head down to Valparaiso today, then return tomorrow. I wasn't feeling up for it this morning, but I think the others went.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Chile 

I've been particularly remisss of late, posting only intermittently. I blame it on school, followed by graduation, followed by packing and planning for the summer. No telling if this will get better or worse over the summer. There will be more interesting things to say over the summer, but I might not have time to post. We will see.

I'm traveling to Chile for the summer, and possibly part of the fall. I'll be staying here, in Santiago.

A brief introduction of the program I'm traveling with, and what exactly I'm going to be doing, is in order. It's being organized through the Chicago-Chile Materials Exchange. The principal person responcible for the Chicago end is Professor Tom Witten in the Physics Department. There are five of us going this summer: myself, Carolyn Brown, Matt O'Meara, Joe Bolte, and Nathan Krafp. Our projects are (very briefly) described here. My project is the "Acounstic Interactions in Two-Phase Media" project on that page. My advisor/boss is Nicolas Mujica He also has a description of the project I'm working on (as well as other things he's interetested in) under "Research."

That description of my project might not be sufficient. I've read one other summary description of it, which helped my understanding of it. There still might be things I don't fully get. I will put up a post explaining the project in the next couple of days.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

An Experiment 

This is a shame. Project Gutenberg doesn't appear to have any of Carl Sandburg's poems. This despite this page, which seems to suggest that at least some of Sandburg's work is in the public domain.

So that answers the question of what to read as a first go at audio blogging.

chicago.ogg
chicago.mp3

The next part is to figure out how to use RSS.

A thorough explanation of the project will follow in a day or two.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Engaged 

I haven't posted since Scavhunt started. Nora wants me to mention this. We are engaged. Nora proposed to me at Judgment.

We're also featured in today's Maroon.