Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in tjh724's LiveJournal:

Sunday, November 26th, 2006
11:53 pm	Thanksgiving 2006 Lets see. This was an interesting Thanksgiving! On Wednesday, the kids had an early release at noon. Yas and I shopped at Trader Joe's in the morning and bought wine, beer, and other goodies to bring to Beacon. We picked Ryan up at noon, and after Kristen arrived at 12:30 we got in the car and left Boston around 1:00. The drive was a little slow on the Mass Pike and in Hartford. It was a little worrisome that the clutch seemed to be slipping a little more than usual. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when the clutch finally started burning as we went up some hills outside of Waterbury. Our top speed was about 40 mph and if I really pressed the gas, the tachometer was zoom up but the car would not go any faster and the clutch would burn! We pulled off at the next exit (Exit 16 in Connecticut) and while I looked for a map and talked to the guy at the Mobil Minimart, Yas did the smart thing and called AAA. They worked heroically and managed to convince staff at the local towing/service/car-rental service to actually come back to work and tow us to Waterbury. We had pulled over at around 6:00 and by 7:00 we were back on the road in a nice new Chevy Trailblazer. Alas, we had called Chris Sjoholm and asked him to come and pick up the kids because the towing staff said we wouldn't get a tow until around 8:00. We tried calling his cell several times, but he didn't pick up until he had almost reached exit 11, at which point he turned around and went back. We finally made it to Beacon that evening and had some Chinese food before retiring. On Thanksgiving Day proper it was raining all day so we stayed inside and took it easy. I spent many hours reading "Beyond the Fall of Night" by Clarke and Benford, it was enjoyable reading. We also set up a video chat with Moe's iMac and I was able to talk to all of my relatives except for Daniel's boys (who were with their mom in Las Cruces). The Thanksgiving dinner was delicious. Shaye made a tasty dish with wild rice and acorn squash, garnished with brussel sprouts. Yum! We also apple pies, pumpkins pies, and pecan pies for desert with hand whipped heavy cream. Amazingly, I didn't eat too much and felt pretty good after dinner. We closed out the evening with our traditional game of scattergories. This time Chris's nephews Zach and Zane were a team (along with their mom Siggy). His brother Chris helped out a little as well. His brother-in-law Theo and his nieces Anya and Erica had to leave early. A good time was had by all. On Friday, Yas and I had a nice walk into town to get some presents for Shaye and to have some coffee. Later that day we all went on a nice hike up to the top of Mount Beacon. I'd never really done any exploring around Beacon and it was quite pleasant to walk around town. Chris showed us the house where he grew up and the place in the nearby graveyard where his mother and brother Eric were buried. In the evening we all drove to the movie complex and watched "Happy Feet," everyone except Ryan thought it was a little wierd, but I guess its demographic was early elementary school or younger children, as Ryan loved the slapstick humor and colorful graphics. Upon returning home we celebrated Shaye's 24th birthday with cards and some simple presents. On Saturday, we went gave Shaye a ride into the city (and we left the dogs in Beacon). Pippin had had a case of diarrhea over the night and had soiled his cage. Meri seemed pretty upset by it all, but luckily neither dog had any fecal matter on their fur. We cleaned it up around 6:30 am and threw out the sleeping pad (as it was unsaveable). By the time we left for NYC, Pippin seemed to have recovered and indeed that was the case. In the city, it took about an hour to find a parking place (and we finally just broke down and pay-parked on 53rd and 8th). We had lunch at Sapporo and it was delicious as usual. Then we walked over to the Crate and Barrel on 59th and Madison to see if they had a Bellman Espresso Maker for Shaye, which they did not; so we walked over the FAO Schwartz at the SE corner of Central Park. The line went out the door and around the corner and halfway down the side block, but it moved quickly. The kids had some ice cream inside and then we picked up the car and drove over to Joe's apartment and met his current girlfriend Sophie, who seems pretty nice. On the way back to Beacon I made four or five wrong terms and we ended up on 684 headed toward Hartford, but we eventually got onto 84 about 45 minutes from the Sjoholms. I worked on a cross-word puzzle with Lisa and Justine (they're quite good) and we finished about half of the puzzle in an hour or so. On Sunday we had bagels and lox for breakfast and finished the crossword puzzle (with only a little googling!). We left about 1:00 pm with Kristen and the trip took about 5 hours. Along the way Ryan started getting a little impulsive and we also increased the tension somewhat by trying to take backroads home rather than the apparently backed up Pike. We finally made it back around 6:00 and ordered out for Sushi. Yas and Ryan got into a tussle, but it all resolved by dinner time. I took Ryan to bed and Yas worked on preparing for her Festive Performance. That just about summarizes our Thanksgiving weekend. The one loose end is the rental car which I'll need to return to Waterbury on Tuesday morning, at which point I'll pick up the green car and drive it back to Boston for my noon class. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 21st, 2006
7:07 pm	Almost Thanksgiving Monday I was on the dissertation proposal committee for one of Jordan's students and then Jordan and I went to lunch and started planning a $1.5 million/5 year NSF proposal to revolutionize undergraduate CS education. When I came home I picked Ryan up from LEDP and then drove off the pick up Caitlin, Taylor, and Maya at GAB. Returning home I spent the evening working on the CMOS quiz for CS2a on Tuesday. I must have worked about 3 hours trying to find the "perfect quiz," but as it turns out, the quiz was much too hard. Still, I think they learned some interesting things preparing for the quiz and now I have a better idea of how (not) to test these things. On Tuesday, I finished writing the quiz and then went to work, taught the class, and gave the quiz. Afterwards, I met with two students - Limo from 2-3 and Michael from 3-3:45 - both of whom are working on web applications. I also sent off a copy of my most recent proposal for CS93 and the CS93 form to Elaine, Jessica, and Bulbul for their comments (mostly Elaine's). This will be a great addition to the curriculum if it is approved. I also put in several hours of work on the TA Lounge project and now I have a much better idea of how it is going to work. We will give a demo in the CS11 class (probably next Thursday) and I'll have several online office hours next week starting on Tuesday afternoon. I've taken tomorrow off, so I'll be able to prepare for the trip to NY in the morning and then we'll drive down to Beacon at 1pm with Kristin Sjoholm. It should be a very nice time. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 20th, 2006
8:48 am	Weekend update Well I haven't written anything since Wednesday, so lets do a quick catchup. On Thursday I went to the NSF town meeting on the CPATH grant which was quite interesting and to which I will probably submit a 1 year planning grant proposal. The room was quite hot and toward noon I started sweating and feeling like I was about to pass out. This worried me, so I went out to the lobby and asked the person there to watch me as I was about to pass out and I didn't know what would happen. I think she called the ambulance, but I was quickly feeling better, so she cancelled it. The hotel security guy stopped by with the emergency medical bag and we talked for a while as I cooled off. I called my doctor's office and asked if I could come in for a quick checkup. My blood pressure and pulse were a little high, but otherwise I was fine. They sent me home with a clean bill of health and I returned to the meeting. On Friday, I had a full day at work (as usual) and then came home early to take Ryan to Tae Kwon Do; afterwards, we went to the drug store and I bought some vitamin E (400IU gel caps) and various antacids, since I've been having some Acid Reflux symptoms lately. That evening Caitlin and Ryan went to hear Caitlin's teacher play a concerto at Fanueil Hall and Ryan went to be early. On Saturday, Yas had workshop all morning and I took Ryan to Tae Kwon Do again and then brought Caitlin home for lunch. At 2 we took her to her piano lesson and brought her back at 3. I spoke to my dad that afternoon. He started chemotherapy two weeks ago and wasn't feeling very good that particular day, so he had stayed in bed all day. He sounded like he was in very good spirits though and we talked a little about his memoires that he is writing. He is a good storyteller, so I look forward to reading what he's written. That evening we went to see Yas's student Samara Oster play the role of Diana Morales in "A Chorus Line." Samara sang the "Nothing" song and "Kiss today goodbye," both of which made me teary eyed. On Sunday, Yas worked out in the morning and I took Ryan to Tae Kwon Do. He's getting pretty good and will probably get his yellow stripe before we go to Tokyo on 12/15. We returned home and watched the Karate Kid movie that stars Hillary Swank as an angry, recently orphaned girl going to Brookline High. It was fun to see a movie filmed near our house. That afternoon Caitlin went to Kaylee's birthday party, but first we stopped by Henry Bear's to buy a birthday present and card. Caitlin picked the "Soda Pop Experiment" package that lets kids experiment making different kinds of soda pop by mixing various ingredients. Caitlin also lost two molars on Sunday and she got 2 gold-colored dollar coins for each one. In the evening, I talked to Moe and Eddy with iChat video for half an hour or so. Her house looked so nice with the late afternoon sun slanting in through the windows and casting long shadows in her kitchen and living room. After Ryan went to bed we watched the movie version of a Chorus Line, which was fun, but it kept us up until after midnight! Its now Monday morning, the kids and Yas are all off to school and I'm about to go myself! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
11:39 pm	Research Plans This morning, after breakfast, we walked the kids to school. We thought Ryan had ice-skating this afternoon in LEDP, but it turns out that doesn't start until the end of the month. He is not actually too excited about skating so he didn't mind. We think he'll really enjoy it once he tries it, but its not something he's clamoring for. After taking the kids to school, I drove to work and spent about three hours talking with my PhD student, John Langton, about a timetable for the completion of his dissertation. We covered some really interesting ideas. One of the most interesting is a simple approach to finding separating hyperplanes by using regression to find the best fit for the boundary points. The boundary being defined as those points in the middle of lattice n-cubes whose surrounding n-cube intersects both regions. This ought to be relatively easy to implement (though one might need to weight the points according to how many vertices are in one or both regions) and it leads to a natural visualization where one can see how well the hyperplane (or hyperquadric) actually does separate the regions. I then worked with Myrna to complete the CRA Taulbee survey (and didn't quite finish) and then went to a the Math Search committee meeting run by Ruth Charney (chair of the Math Dept). They're doing a good job. They have about 300 applications for one position and will probably have 600 by the time the application period ends in 2 weeks. Returning home to pick up Ryan, I parked near the school, and then he and I went out to Coolidge Corner to have pizza for dinner at the "Upper Crust." The dinner was very good (pizza and soda). Before dinner we stopped into Brookline Booksmith and bought a few books. Ryan got an activity book (which is good for his reading and math skills), I bought a book on how to keep your heart healthy because I'm getting to that age where it will behoove me to take good care of my body (and that includes my heart!) I do want to live to a ripe old age to see my children through early adulthood and ideally to be a grandparent for a while! I read Ryan a story and tucked him into bed shortly after Yas and Caitlin came home. Caitlin has gymnastics practice until 7:30 on Wednesday nights and Yas works until 6:30 then swings by and picks Caitlin up (usually with some sushi for dinner on the way home). I helped Caitlin with her math (she knows the concepts but works a little too quickly and makes silly errors). For the last hour or so I've been preparing for the NSF CPATH meeting tomorrow in downtown Boston. I'd like to submit a multi-institution 3 year proposal whose goal would be to open up the classroom experience using groupware tools. More on that later! (Comment on this)
1:55 pm	Tuesday's activities I'm posting today with a quick overview of yesterday's activities. At work I had several meetings as part of the NEASC visit (which is now done!). I also taught about logic gates in my class, getting up to N-bit adder circuits and I attended the Davis committee meetings, but didn't contribute much. In the UAC NEASC meeting there was an interesting discussion about "trusted delegation" as a model for University governance. I thought it was a good model as long as the administration makes a considerable effort to keep the community advised about its short and long range plans. In my view, I don't want to "follow a leader" no matter how good they are, but I do want to be able to have a trusted administrator making the difficult decisions that are needed for the organization to thrive. The caveat being that the administrator is trusted to the extent that his/her decision process is transparent and clearly incorporates the community feelings into the decision making, even and perhaps especially, in the cases where potentially divisive decisions must be made. I made a comment in the meeting about how the current administration was clearly interested in transparency and in assessing the community's feelings about the University's strategic plan. After work, I rushed home to pick Ryan up from LEDP. We all ate a delicious leftover stew from the previous night and then Ryan, Caitlin, and I went to here Caitlin's chorus performing with a Czeck boys choir. Yas was working late and so couldn't make it. Caitlin sang beautifully and Ryan made a heroic effort to set quietly, but it was clearly hard for him since he was staying up an hour past his bedtime and his best friend was sitting right behind him. After returning home I took Ryan to bed (reading about how Eeyore lost his tail) while Caitlin practiced the Fantasy Impromptu. She's making great progress. The Japanese maples are spectacular this time of year. Their brilliant red leaves are falling and making a beautiful splash of color beneath the newly bare branches. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 13th, 2006
10:10 pm	Rainy Monday Today I participated in four NEASC meetings as part of the Brandeis accreditation process and I chaired the CS department meeting. The NEASC meetings were interesting. While chatting with various people at the meetings I decided that it would be best if LTS were to manage and run the cluster and if the NSF grant would pay for one sysad and LTS would contribute another. Also, I got approval for the 3 year curriculum plan in the department and I received departmental support for the CS95 course which I will bring to the UCC relatively soon. After work I drove home and picked up Ryan at LEDP (with 1 minute to spare..... too close) and then brought him home and answered a few emails before hurrying off to pickup Caitlin and two other girls at Gymnastics. I stopped at Whole Foods Market before picking up the girls and bought them Sushi, Pizza, and Juices for dinner. After shuttling the girls to their respective homes, I had a nice stew that Yas made and relaxed in front of my laptop reading political blogs for about 30 minutes. Then I took out the recycling and garbage and moved a dozen bags of leaves from the side of the house to the curb. I kissed Ryan goodnight -- he's such a wonderful boy! and I'm now listening to Yas and Caitlin practicing their Tchaikovsky for Yas's Holiday Recital 12/5/06 at the Brookline Public Library. So, thats a quick summary of the 15 hours of my day so far and I guess it gives a sense of the fulness of my days at work and at home. One of the more interesting parts of the day was the work on the AlQuds/Brandeis TA Lounge. We've got about 8 TAs signed up (4 from Brandeis, 4 from Al Quds) and if we're lucky we'll start the TA lounge next week. Its not clear which technology will work best, but there are plenty to try and even more to build! I have high hopes for this project as a model of international resources sharing and community building on a global scale... I didn't produce any archivable information today but I did quite a bit of work on networking and community building across the sciences. I'll close out the night watching a movie with Yas. I'm tempted to go to straight to bed, but I ate rather late and don't like to go to sleep shortly after eating.... We're going to watch "Where the Truth Lies" ... sounds fun... (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 12th, 2006
11:53 pm	Evening activities Ryan went to bed around 8:30 and we read another Chapter from the Winnie-the-Pooh book. We're working our way through the collected works edition with all the stories and the poems. He said he was afraid of zombies, this arising from his viewing of an arcade game in which the players shoot all the zombies as they attack. I assured him that zombies were make believe and he was perfectly safe up on the third floor. That seemed to work. Coming down I then prepared for the faculty meeting tomorrow. I wrote up the 3 year plan for staffing our courses and seeking faculty hires, scheduling sabbaticals, etc. I also wrote up a proposal for a new course CS95 which would serve as a Research Internship course. I had already written preliminary verions of both of these documents so I just converted them to HTML, made a PDF copy, and then sent them off in an email to my colleagues. Then, I sent an email apologizing to the TYP staff since I will not be able to teach TYP 6a tomorrow (I need to attend the Science Library meeting for NEASC which I had forgotten about). Looking over the day, it was filled with family activities (which is what I live for!), family responsibilities (paying bills), and work that I was not able to complete during the week. The activity today that is likely to have the biggest impact on my life may well be the time spent thinking about how to do backups and more generally how to have an lasting, positive effect in the world. (Comment on this)
8:24 pm	Busy Sunday Events of the day ... This weekend I finished grading the CS2a midterm. Each exam took from 5-15 minutes to grade. I then created a grading servlet to estimate their midsemester grades and modified it to send the grades to all students via an email message. Then I took Ryan to TaeKwonDo at 11. He's getting pretty good, but he did have to stay after with four other boys who were having trouble listening. I spent the hour thinking about how to backup all my digital information and for how long. That inevitably led to a consideration of what information I want to survive me and more generally our role in creation and how the things I do will make a difference in the Universe... I didn't have any grand realizations, except that I decided I wanted to make more of an effort to complete projects and to disseminate the work I do so that it has the greatest effect. I thought it might also be nice to invest some time into journaling. Yas and Caitlin picked us up and we went directly to Harvard Vanguard to get our Flu shots. Ryan and Caitlin were very good! They didn't even complain about getting stuck with the needle. We then drove across the street and went to see "Flushed Away." The kids loved the slapstick parts of the movie. After the movie we went to the arcade. Caitlin and I went a few rounds with Dance Dance Revolution. She's much better than me at DDR. Yas and Caitlin dropped Ryan and I off at home and they went to see an Early Music Ensemble performance led by Caitlin's Early Music Teacher. Ryan watched TV (Blue's Clue's ...) while I paid the bills. When Yas and Caitlin returned, Yas starting cooking Shitake and Green Beans for the PTO Play potluck at 7:30 while Caitlin worked on her homework and I tried to catch up on my class email. Then Yas and Caitlin went to the DVD release party/potluck for the PTO Play last year. Its now about time for me to take Ryan to bed! (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 15th, 2005
3:10 pm	Busy Saturday This morning I took Caitlin and Ryan to their music lessons that the NEC. Caitlin had a workshop at 12 where she played Bach's Invention #15. The teacher wrote in her evaluation that Caitlin played beautifully. I was proud of her. During the workshop Ryan and I played hangman. He would find words written on the posting boards in the hallway and I'd try to guess. We had a nice time. I asked Moe to join livejournal so I could see how the "friends" stuff works and I just got an email saying she's joined, so I'll have to look and see what she writes. This might be a good way for us as a family to keep in contact between phone calls and visits! Anyway, for the rest of the afternoon I'm participating in an Admissions event at Brandeis where faculty and staff are available to prospective students to answer questions and talk about Brandeis. Today's event is for students that are under represented in elite American Universities. I'm looking forward to this event, I always enjoy talking about Brandeis. Its a great environment for teaching and research and at the same time is small enough to feel like a familial community. There is more cooperation toward shared goals than competition for scarce resources. Its been raining for 4-5 days straight, so we'll probably rent some movies tonight and pop some popcorn. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 12th, 2005
11:52 pm	This is my first livejournal entry. Its 11:52 pm EST and everyone else is asleep. The puppies are making a little noise, but mostly there's just the sound of the refrigerator humming and the whirring of the fans of the various computers in this room. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur and the kids and I have the day off, but Yas has a morning meeting. If its another rainy day tomorrow we'll need to find some fun indoor activities (mayby roller skating!) (Comment on this)