Full Steam Ahead

Since last time, classes have gotten a lot busier and now take up a good part of my spare time. The work is really hard. However, it's not really any meteorology that's giving me problems, it's the math and physics. Luckily most of the students work together, and most don't seem to mind helping out. I wish they had some sort of operational forecasting track like they do for broadcast meteorology that wouldn't focus so hard core on this stuff that really only matters in research. On the good side, one of my professors is out of town, so I don't have that class all next week, meaning no homework. But I do have a test to study for, a presentation to prepare for, a term paper topic to think about, and some tinkering around with journal articles (cyclone climatology, whoohoo) so Jim doesn't think I'm slacking.

Other news and notes (I'd rather not do bullets, but it keeps me from rambling):

• Kristin stopped by for lunch on her way out to California. It was really good to see her, but I was disappointed it had to be so brief.
• I have a week for fall break coming up in October. So with no plans, I decided I'd go visit Casey in New York for a few days, which also happens to fall on his birthday. I'm really excited and bet we have a blast. I feel guilty about not going home, but it was a lot more expensive, and I'd basically be sitting around the house bored by myself. Plus Mom OK'ed it!
• Some dude halfway melted my jumper cables because he thought he knew how to jump his car but actually didn't. It's partially my fault for not asking, but he acted confident.
• Scratch "running into people at Wal-Mart" off the Miss List. I saw one of the meteorology kids there Friday night.
• I've already bought my plane tickets home for Christmas. When I saw NWA had a flight for $120 cheaper than everyone else, I couldn't pass it up. Hope I didn't make a mistake.
• Upper low #1 several weeks ago knocked us from near 100 to near 80. I got caught outside in a 60mph gust front. Those were some of the most impressive winds I've ever seen. There was so much dust we couldn't even see down into the valley from the university.
• Upper low #2 is currently bringing rain (rare sight!) and is dropping the high on Monday down to near 60. Snow is possible in the highest elevations. Fall is here.
• Speaking of fall, I drove up into the mountains this morning and checked out some of the foliage. The Alpine Loop area is stunning. I have posted pictures on my Webshots page (along with some from Antelope Island, and a storm at sunset). And if Robert Redford drives a green Jaguar convertible (he lives in that area), then I definitely saw him... but probably just some random rich person with a gated driveway.

I'm probably forgetting quite a bit since it's been a while and I've been so busy. But if it's important enough, I'll be sure to post it.

Back Into the Routine

Well I've been in classes two weeks now, and I haven't been completely overwhelmed so far, but it's still very early. For the most part, the content is still very bland. However, the homework is not, especially physics. Both problems so far have been extremely difficult derivations that I would have no clue how to do if I didn't seek help. We just got our first dynamics homework, which is straight out of Holton... I HATE book assignments; NCSU professors really spoiled me. And it also gave me my first taste of MATLAB, although there was no programming, just plugging in values to some prewritten code. Classes at 9am still suck and are hard to stay awake in. Jim (my adviser) called me into his office last week to gauge my research interests and said he would try to "dream up" a project I could work on in my spare time to get my feet wet with datasets and programming. Anyway, I was still very glad to have this 3-day weekend.

Side story: Best Buy screwed me over by selling me a broken TV that wasn't even supposed to be put back on the shelf. So they gave me a sweet deal on a sweet 32" LCD... which I didn't even realize was 32" until I got out to my car and it would barely fit in my back seat. When I got home, I went into man mode and promptly tore apart my entertainment center so it would fit. It looks pretty ghetto, but the TV makes up for it. Contact me if you want to see a picture of it.

To add to the list below, I miss:

• Having a reliable, massive homework buddy system... knowing I could contact any number of people at any given time, and if they didn't know how to solve the problem, they could find someone else who could. I'm sure this will improve with time.
• Living on campus and knowing that it would take me 10 minutes to get to class no matter what. Rush hour traffic really sucks here, especially when you're trying to get to class by 9:00. And it's causing me to get really bad gas mileage! It also means I have to get up at 7:15 when I'd get up at 7:55 for the same time class last year.

One positive, though. As bad as the drivers are here, they're very good about stopping at crosswalks. It's nothing like risking your life at NCSU trying to cross Dan Allen. However, this is generally a very pedestrian and bicycle friendly city.