Reality Distortion Field There's nothing like watching Steve Jobs give the keynote address at WWDC 2004. I was having heretical thoughts about my next computer being a Windows PC, but Steve set me strait. That's just what I needed to get my drooping enthusiasm up again. I'm even thinking about doing some development again (seriously.)  ¶ 10:08 PM 0 comments

  Rick the Brick What do I do when my church decides to run the Sunday morning worship service entirely for kids, and has a life size mascot of Rick the Brick singing Rick Da Brick Rap? I leave in the middle of church (a first for me), and decide to start attending my friend's church. I was going to stop going as soon as I moved up to College Station, but that service prematurely ended my attendance.  ¶ 10:15 PM 0 comments

  Muscles You might have heard about the big muscle German kid. I passed this news along to one of my biology friends and he emailed this back:

But what I don't understand is that even with extra bulk, are all of the extra myoblasts fully functional. And are they innervated correctly. Myostatin regulates myoblast proliferation in embryonic development. In the case of muscular dystrophy, i really don't know how this would be useful since it REGULATES muscle. I don't know.

Biology is not my field, but I whole heartedly share his doubts.  ¶ 5:46 PM 0 comments

  Jeopardy Madman Ken Jennings has won 16 strait games on Jeopardy. My family kept telling me about him, but I'm not usually able to watch Jeopardy. I finally got to watch one today. Ken Jennings is really fast. He was up to $9000 before the other two opponents even scored. I hope he makes it to one million dollars.  ¶ 7:03 PM 1 comments

  Thoughts on space flight Yesterday the first private manned space flight was flown. It's exciting that in the future space might be accessible. I'd love to go up myself some day. I just hope space travel doesn't stay something only an elite few can do.

The story seems to be getting cool reception in the news though. It's defiantly not the top story. I guess going to space is old hat. Just like the unrest in the 1960's overshadowed the Apollo program, all the unrest today overshadows this accomplishment.  ¶ 10:49 AM 0 comments

  The Fraternal Order of Police Fortunately, I don't have huge problems with spam (especially since I stopped using Hotmail), but I have been getting, for a while, email from The Fraternal Order of Police District of Columbia. The problem is that I'm not a police officer, I don't live in the District of Columbia, and I never signed up for their mailing list. They also have no way of unsubscribing from their list on their website, and when I email them about it I get blocked by some spam filter (it seems they don't like mail from Yahoo!, and I'm too lazy to try another account).

Well, it's not all bad because sometimes these email are good for a laugh. They're usually about social events at their lodge. One event was a show put on by a ventriloquist. Fun. Lately it seems that there's been a large demand for karaoke, so they're giving in and are booking Pat for this weekend. I can't wait for the email that tells me how that goes. That brings me to the big question: How did I get on their email list? The world may never know.  ¶ 8:44 PM 0 comments

  Feels Like Christmas I remember that feeling in December when I was a child. December dragged with anticipation of Christmas. The feeling has worn off now and December is just as fast as any month. Usually it's a few days before Christmas that you realize you need to buy some presents. Well that feeling is back, but this time it's August 14, the day that I move up to College Station. ARRGG! The waiting!  ¶ 9:13 PM 0 comments

  Professor . . . hmmm that sounds good I don't know about you, but it seems that all I get in the mail is credit card offers, lots of credit card offers. Today was a break from the normal. I received a letter from India addressed so:

Professor Christopher Joel Cowan
Department of Mathematics
University of Texas at San Antonio
My Address

The letter was from the Pushpa Publishing House (warning: their site has about 9 Java applets that serve as link buttons) and they were inviting me to submit ". . . original research papers and critical survey articles for consideration of possible publication in its established journal namely the Far East Journal of Mathematical Sciences." (Just to make it clear, I'm not a professor at UTSA, but I did get a Math BS there.) I thought about sending it back saying that the UTSA math department was not at my address, but I didn't want to lose this letter.  ¶ 3:44 PM 0 comments

  A hot day in College Station? I was browsing a list of mathematics faculty at Texas A & M. Most of the pictures on the various faculty member's pages are good, but there's a few (for example here, here, and here) that look like they were sweating profusely. I hope it's not that hot up there! On second thought though, it might be the lighting and/or the quality of the jpgs. I'll have to ask about that if I ever have one of those professors for a class.  ¶ 8:40 PM 0 comments

  Apartments: the saga continues I got my apartment lease in the mail yesterday. I read it over, which took a while, signed it, and mailed it back today. (That sounds like it would work in the the dullest blog in the world.)

On a different note, whenever someone calls me on my cellphone at my house, it makes my computer speakers go nuts with beeping noises. Freaked me out the first time.  ¶ 12:06 PM 0 comments