Square in the Fun Target

I've had a short break from working on my masters report recently. Ever since I've been willing to admit that I won't be presenting on the 7th, I've relaxed a little and had some nights at home. I don't sit in front of my lap top and Shannon's watching the log window of SAS hoping that nothing red pops up. The simulations ran for 11 hours on my computer and 20 on Shannon's. But that step is over and now I just have to finish writting it all up.


In other news. I painted some black orcs! They go along with my lil' goblins. I started them a while ago and finally finished them this weekend. Next up, some new grave guard.

T-Storm Teaser

The weather forcasted a thunderstorm today. We didn't get one, which it too bad. It was warm and muggy, it would have been a nice day for a rain shower.

Between the weather finally getting nicer and the parking lot being full on campus at 11:15pm on Monday, you know the semester is getting close to its end. In less than a month I'll be done with school, possibly for the rest of my life. That is really scary when you think about it. I've been doing essentially the same thing for the past 22 years, if you count pre-k. And now I can see the end. I'm looking forward to moving on though. It will be a nice change. :)

Resources Not Available

I've been in my office since about 11:00am today, and it's just about 9:00pm now. For as much SAS as I've ran, I don't have much done. Explaining why will somewhat support the name of this blog.

I'm generating normal data that is representing data from an experiment. In the experiment they start with right skewed data, take the log10 transformation of it, and then end with normal data.

So what I thought I needed to do was make normal data, exponentiate it base 10, then I'd have the skewed data. But my major professor says I need to exponentiate it base e. She said, we are assuming the skewed data is lognormal. This means that we are assuming if we exponentiate it base e it will be normal, and this is just because of what it means to be lognormal. When I don't see it.

Wikipedia says the base doesn't matter. But Shannon's theory book is locked in his office so I can't check that. I guess I just don't care anymore. I'll just do what she says and then be done with it. I am so tired of looking at this stuff and hoping that its right. I just won't hope anymore.

Well...

As you may know, I've been working on my Masters, oh about all the time. Shannon and I get to school at 7:30 and besides my hour+/- long lunch I am on campus (usually in my office) until at least 9:30. Today it'll be about 10:15. Today is also the only day I didn't spend the whole time coding and writing. Instead I graded my student's exams. I still have a report that they turned in 2 weeks ago to grade, but that'll get done some other night.

The 14 hour long days have been paying off. I've gotten a lot done. But still a lot more ahead of me. Shannon helped out the efforts today by delivering a survival package consisting of a 12-pack of Coke, a Powerade, an Arizona green tea, a loaf of bread, some soup at hand, some Hershey's kisses, a Twix bar, a Powerbar, an apple, and some Nutrigrain bars. Now, don't worry, I didn't eat it all today. Only about half of it. :)

The food helps, the support helps, the times then the code works helps, there a lot of help involved. I can't possibly let it all go to waste, now can I?

Queso?

Sunday we at at Cafe Ted's before we left Tulsa. Nicki enjoyed the free queso, too. She would dip the chip, suck off the cheese and redip the chip. She had queso all over her face. It was dripping from the corners of her mouth. it was gross, but really funny too.

Nicki and the Girls

Nicole entertained a crowd of girls at the Italian restaurant we ate dinner ate on Saturday in Tulsa. It's pretty amazing how they can all get along and enjoy the same things even though Nicki is about 12 years younger then them. It was pretty cute though.

Modeling Stream Flow

There is this awesome consulting report being given tomorrow, Tuesday April 8th, at 4:15 pm. Its about modeling stream flow with linear regression. Only the predictors that were used were highly correlated!

A Minute of Non-SAS

Thursday my major professor kicked me. Not literally, but motivatingly, but I don't think she directly meant to. I went up to ask about turning in an abstract on Friday so I could get my name in the program for graduation. She basically said that she didn't think we needed to worry about that because I might not finish in time for graduation.

Wow.

I was so bummed, super-bummed. I tried to find words to say that made sense, but I didn't do a very good job. I expressed to her my desire to finish before I move to Tulsa for my new job. I think that was the first time she heard of me moving. The last news she had was that Shannon and I were looking to stay in Manhattan.

I left her office feeling very sad and defeated.

In a response to this event, I have spent a lot of time working on my simulations for my report. Thursday I could only work for about 2 hours. But Friday I spent from 1:30 to 7:00 working in my office. And today I've been here since about 3:00. I've got a lot done, but still have so much more to go. I do not want to miss graduation and have to come back in the summer to defend my report. I will get done by May 16th. I mean, that is still over a month away.

So, don't expect me to be doing much from now until I'm done. Beside my house-hunting trip to Tulsa this Thursday, I'll be doing a lot of sitting in my office and looking at my computer.

500% Increase

Ever since we moved out to Jenette and Chris' place and have to leave at 7:00 am to get to school, the amount of money we've been spending on scones and drinks at Radina's as increased by approximately 500%. Yes, 500%. That means we are spending about 5 times as much as we used to.

But the scones are incredibly good in the morning!

April, Fool.

I was just totally had by an April Fool's joke.

The link for www.xkcd.com, the best webcomic ever, wasn't working. It kept taking me to www.questionablecontent.net. I was all like "What the crap!?" and then I tried to find my beloved webcomic and stumbled upon....

April Fool's Joke

On April Fool's Day 2008, xkcd was part of a three-webcomic prank involving Dinosaur Comics and Questionable Content wherein each comic's URL displayed another comic's web page. www.questionablecontent.net displayed the Dinosaur Comics website, www.qwantz.com (the Dinosaur Comics website) displayed xkcd, and www.xkcd.com displayed the Questionable Content website. The prank appears to have been orchestrated by Randall Munroe, as Jeph Jacques' Twitter for the day in question read "GOD DANG RANDALL MUNROE STEALIN' MY WEBSITE."^[70]

Thank you Wikipedia. Thank you.

Means Matrix

Today I worked on my Masters report for a while. I even enlisted the help of Shannon and his mad programming skills. It's always nice when things finally work out.

In other, less academic, news...Last Saturday we played our Alumni Game in Junction. We lost, the alumni out scored us 10 to 5 in the end, I believe. But it was a good time and we had about 30 people come out to watch us. It's nice to get to play close to home. It'll be really nice when we get to play in Manhattan. I'm really glad that the new rec center expansion will have a hockey facility. Sweet.

Saturday evening, I then drove down to Wichita to watch/listen to Jayme play her tuba at the Wichita State University Contemporary Music Festival. The music, since it was contemporary, was interesting. Jayme's piece had a CD to go along with. It was pretty cool, and as always, she played well! We didn't' get to stay for all of it because Nicki wanted to go "bye-bye".


I did however, get to hear my little niece make some music of her own. Jayme got her a children's harmonica and Nicole just is figuring out how to use it. She puts it to her mouth and breaths in and out really really fast. It occasionally makes a sound and that just encourages her to do it even more even faster. She leans into the thing so much that I'm surprised she doesn't just topple over. I just love that kid. She's adorable, black eye and all!