I’m going to see dinosaurs November 20, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 4 commentsScientists announced today that they’ve succeeded in retrieving most of the woolly mammoth DNA sequence from frozen hair samples. I’m predicting now, on November 20, 2008 (actually I predicted it yesterday, but just got around to posting this), that I will see live dinosaurs before I die. We have most of the genetic information, the technology will come, and the monetary incentives for bringing a dinosaur back to live are just too high to be passed up. It’s a shame Michael Crichton isn’t around to see this. Jurassic Park, here we come.
Your thoughts?Back in the bay area! October 31, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a commentIt’s been almost a year since I’ve been in the bay area. But I had a chance to sit in on three classes on high speed digital design taught by a very highly esteemed Rice alum. The classes have been great (Howard Johnson is an amazing teacher), and it’s been a fun opportunity to catch up with old friends. I do have more friends here than I’m going to have time to see in a day and a half, but considering that I lived here for four years, I feel a little weird that I don’t have more. I feel like I’ve been a a stronger social circle during my one year in Seattle than my entire four years in Berkeley.
No time to worry about that today, though! It’s Halloween and my royale with cheese costume is calling…
Your thoughts?Best day ever October 25, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 commentsYesterday started off well with a free lunch at Lunch 2.0. After dinner I received an email from a college friend pointing me to a job that looks like a great for me. We planned to discuss it further over beer but realized that he was leaving town on Saturday and I was leaving town on Sunday. Fortunately, we turned out to be five minutes from each other at the time of email exchange and were talking over beer ten minutes later. I haven’t been this excited about a job in a long time, particularly one that matches my skill set so well.
I left in an incredibly good mood. While stopped in traffic I texted a friend to tell them the meeting went well, only see flashing lights in my rear view mirror. “Seriously? I’m getting pulled over for texting?” I thought. Actually, it turned out that I had run a stop sign - apparently I was in such a good mood and so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t even see it.
“Did you know that you just rolled right through a stop sign?” the police officer asked me. I wasn’t sure what to say. I remembered the advice from the videos in Why You Should Never Talk to the Cops but didn’t feel completely comfortable telling the officer that I was going to plead the fifth. In the end, I just stared confusedly for about fifteen seconds until he said, “ok,” and walked back to his cruiser.
Waiting in my car for the next ten minutes, I ran through all my options for fighting the ticket. Did I have any kind of plausible defense? But even with a ticket, I was still in a great mood, and when the officer came back to tell me he was letting me off with a warning, my day got even better.
A free lunch, an exciting job opportunity, an escaped traffic ticket, and a few other long time personal goals achieved all in one day. Very very satisfying.
Your thoughts?I have a new freelance writing gig October 23, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 commentsIt’s been a few years since my last position as a professional writer, but I’m at it again. I’m freelancing for Guidespot.com, writing snarky guides to help get their website up and going. My first: Seven Worst Places to Break Up in Seattle.
Your thoughts?The sleep diet continues and I have new weird shoes October 10, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 2 commentsI’ve fallen a bit behind on this blog. It’s sad, because there’s so much interesting stuff going on that I’d really like to record for posterity. But I’m applying for jobs now, so I feel like I need to be much more restrained about what I say.
I also just got back from my sister’s wedding in Maryland, which was fantastic. I doubt I’ll ever attend another wedding with sumo suits at the reception.
With regards to the sleep diet, I just cut down to 6.5 hours a night. I’m at the very beginning of the adjustment period, so I still feel pretty groggy in the morning, but not as bad as I would expect. Considering that I needed 8-8.5 every night as of just a few months ago, I consider this a successful experiment so far. If it ended right now, I think I would go back to 8 hours a night, but I’m going to push a little further and see what happens.
In other interesting news, I have moved away from sneakers as my main footwear and am now wearing Vibram’s Five Fingers almost everywhere:
The original motivation came from the article You Walk Wrong in NY Magazine. The author interviews a number of podiatrists who hypothesize that many of today’s foot and knee ailments stem from the fact that the thick padded soles of today’s shoes cause us to adopt a walking style very different from the gait our bodies evolved for over tens of thousands of years. The theory sounded reasonable to me, and as I’ve been dealing with running-induced knee injuries for the past 7 years, I thought I’d try out a more minimalist shoe to see if changing my running and walking form would help. (My roommate Craig has started doing the same thing, though he decided to pay somewhat more to get shoes that don’t make him look like a weirdo.)
What I didn’t anticipate was how incredibly satisfying I find it to be able to feel the ground through the shoes’ thin soles. Imagine you’d worn gloves for 25 years straight and now finally got to take them off and actually touch things. That’s how happy my feet feel.
Your thoughts?