Penn State Week

I got here on Monday afternoon and was immediately wisked from the airport to the labs for a 3 minute introduction to everyone and everything before Paul (a.k.a. Dr. Weiss, the ride-giver and lab-leader-boss-man) disappeared never to be seen again. So I piddled around for a while, generally getting in people's ways and asking a bunch of questions about their STM setups, electronics, and software - all very interesting for an STM geek like myself. My next main goal consisted of altering some Matlab programs to work for my specific file formats - much harder and more time consuming than it sounds, let me assure you. I only today succeeded in the first project that I started Monday afternoon, and only shortly before that realized that it didn't do everything that I originally thought. Now part two of my Matlab goals looms much more ominously before me, since I understand it to be significantly more difficult and complex than the first. Also, to call part one a complete success, I have to create added functionality to an already complex system. Of course there are the requisite bugs that are a part of any programming endeavor, but mine are small, like the simple typo that killed most of today's progress. I have to say, though - at least I'm finally learning Matlab.

The visit as a whole is slightly better than mediocre, I'd say. Aside from dinner with some people on Monday, and brief lunches yesterday and today, it doesn't seem anyone's too anxious to be social. I suppose I understand since they probably get a lot of research visitors - they have someone coming next week as well - but even leaving lab at 6:30 leaves too much day left with nothing to do. I'm not a big fan of eating and going to bars by myself, but I suppose I could make the effort to meet random people. I'm guessing that by tomorrow night I'll be bored enough to actually do it. We'll see.

Weekend work

I'm at work today getting ready for my trip to Penn State. I learned only yesterday that I've been asked to give a talk at the Weiss group meeting - only about 20-30 people, but that's pretty big for a single lab, and they're all experts in my field, so I've got to be very precise and exact. It could be as early as Monday. I'm also working to get all my data collected and organized, brush up on my pathetic matlab skills, and learn a bunch of new stuff about image processing drift correction and feature tracking. Sounds like fun, no? Still, it should be a good trip as long as I manage not to make too much of a fool of myself.

First update of 2006

Big freakin' deal. I should have titled this post "First post in WEEKS!"

I'm not going to attempt an update on all that has happened since I posted last, but rather a brief overview for everyone who doesn't care.

Went to moms in Philly. Saw Bro and Sis. Saw extended family for Christmas and Christmas 2. Cousin J. came down from Boston, but not Uncle R., Aunt K., or Cousin N. because Uncle R.s cancer seems to be winning this round. My thoughts are with you guys. Hung out with Bro and Sis a lot and closed a couple bars - cool. Ate way too much food, including mom's incredible Christmas cookies. Now I'm fat.

There. That about sums it up. New years eve was a quiet, yet satisfying and fun evening with B. Work has started again and once again I'm sort of directionless. Well, not exactly directionless, but completely unmotivated to more in the directions I could be. I leave for a week at Penn State next Monday, so I've been doing prep work for that, but probably not enough. I'm sort of apprehensive about going, because there's not really any specific project or solid goal for the trip. Aside from "learn their method for post-acquisition image drift correction in matlab," I'm supposed to eye the lab for post-doc potential. hmmm.... I'm not sure I even want to do a post-doc. What the hell do I want to do?