The Hoosier Diaspora

Broncos - 
Originally uploaded by khob

Dani had some friends in town so we hung out over the weekend. Among other things, we went to a Broncos game which was a lot of fun and my first time at an NFL game. Good times. We also went to a couple of Rockies games, including one where we had club level seats. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the only way to fly. I think it’s equivalent to business class, but for baseball games. One step below box seats, but still very nice.

We also headed to the Molly Brown museum in Denver, which you can safely skip thanks to the completely insane and somewhat nasty tour guide there. She struck me as the kind of lady who wanted to become an elementary school teacher so she could yell at kids a lot. Still, a nice visit for historical reasons and if you’re a fan you should definitely go.

One of the many major changes — this seems to happen to me a lot lately — is that I’ve switched advisors to Liz Jessup. Things were good with my previous advisor so it’s not a bad break-up, but I think Liz is working in an area that’s a better fit for me. It’s very similar to what I was working on before, but with more of a focus on the tools to enable scientific computing and with a more computer science focus. That, and there is a really interesting project along these lines that has funding, so after another year of TA’ing the senior project I’ll be switching to a research assistant position working on this project. I’m done with classes now and have my Masters after passing the prelim, so I should have time to start seriously focusing on research and finding a topic. We’ll see how that goes.

I’d have to say that all things considered I had a great summer. I really enjoyed the bay area, despite it being insanely hot in Livermore where the lab was and where I was living.

I had a great time in the evenings and on the weekends, and saw lots of interesting things out there. Lots to see and do. San Francisco is great, and there were a lot of good weekend trips to be had. You’ve probably seen a bunch of posts to that effect. The folks at the lab were great too, both the people I worked with in my group and the cool friends I made over the summer. I’m glad that we live in an era of blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. so that it’s much easier to stay in touch with the folks you meet a things like this.

Work-wise, things were great too. I had access to some pretty amazing supercomputers, and I really enjoyed the work I was doing. They seemed to be very happy with what I was able to accomplish over the summer, and I’m glad that things fell together as well as they did. I’m making an effort to stay connected and in touch with the lab since I’d like go to back and do some more stuff there. Lots of interesting work and people there.

The past - 
Originally uploaded by khob

After my summer job at Lawrence Livermore national lab in California, it was time to head back to CO. Dani flew out and we took a nice meandering road trip back. We were originally going to go to Yosemite, but it was on fire at the time (a controlled burn that turned out not to be). We hit Sequoia, the Hoover Dam, Vegas, Capitol Reef, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Hogback ridge, and the Vail CO area on the way. Good times.

The drive wasn’t too bad; The scenery was nice and it was good to have Dani with me for the trip. I made most of the journey out to CA riding alone, so that was a lot worse. Especially since we took the much less scenic northern route on the way out to CA.

There’s a bunch of photos in a Flickr set if anyone is interested.

The new steed - 
Originally uploaded by khob

A Masi Speciale CX cross bike. I had interrupted braking, more road-oriented tires, a new saddle, baskets, and a bottle cage added. Plus transferring the lights and computer from my old bike. So far I really like it, though I’m hideously out of shape and don’t do it justice yet. It was a close race between this bike and a Surly cross-check, though the key factors were that it’s very difficult to find a Surly in a bike shop, and they use bar-end shifters that I don’t like at all.

Just a quick note to let folks know I made it back to Boulder. I had a great road trip with Danielle and I’m getting settled in. I’ll post some pictures and further updates once the dust settles.