Electric Car Update

I was supposed to get my Nissan Leaf this month.  Unfortunately, with the earthquake in Japan (where this year's Nissan Leafs are being manufactured -- if you buy one next year it will be made in Tennessee) that date got pushed off until July.  It is too bad because the last time I filled the tank of my Volkswagen Beetle it cost me more than $41 -- and that was with a $0.50/gallon discount.

But July is better than never, and really, there are so many worse things that earthquake did than delay the arrival of my car by two months, that I can't complain.  It's just that I'm really excited about getting it so it kind of stinks that I won't get it as soon as I had thought.

More News from the Night Shift

Apparently we may experience a blizzard here tomorrow. It will snow at least six inches, possibly more, and it may blow around a lot and cause white-out conditions. Also, there's a good chance that the high winds could knock out electricity. I'm glad I'm already here, and not having to contend with that. I'm hoping that everything will be clear by the time I leave on Sunday.

We brought a bunch of firewood into the house today, just in case the power goes out. We should be able to all huddle around the fireplace and keep warm. But if that doesn't work out, I'm sure that my baby nephew will give us top priority on getting emergency shelter somewhere.

Progress (Yeah!!!)

I was overjoyed to learn today of the Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous ruling striking down the state's ban on same-sex marriages!

The justices cited equal protection in their decision, and also noted that objections to same-sex marriage are purely religious in nature:

In one part of the decision that focuses on religious opposition to same-sex marriage, the justices seemed to anticipate negative reactions, saying they considered the unspoken reason for the ban on same-sex marriages to be religiously motivated. The justices said marriage was a “civil contract” and should not affect religious doctrine or views.

Thank you, Iowa Supreme Court, for saying exactly what I've said for years: marriage as regulated by the government is a secular institution. If two heterosexual atheists are allowed to get married, then the civil marriage contract cannot be a religious contract. Therefore, religious arguments against any type of marriage -- mixed-race, same-sex, ugly people, you name it -- are irrelevant to the practice of marriage contracts as regulated by the government.

If your church doesn't want to marry two people of the same sex, that's fine -- don't do it. Nobody can force you to, just like they can't force you to sanctify the marriage of atheists in the church, or people of two different races, or whatever other couples who break your religious tenets. But your religion does not get to inform the government of the fitness of couples to be joined in civil marriage. No way.

Thank you, Iowa Supreme Court, for getting it. You are made of awesome!

Attention: Students

For my vast audience of STEM student readers, and any professors who advise STEM students:

Have you ever wanted to know what it's like to work at a United States Department of Energy laboratory?  Are you looking for something to do this summer?  Then why not apply for a summer internship at a national laboratory!

The national laboratories offer paid internship programs for students studying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  The pay is good, and the experience is invaluable.

If you're an undergraduate, check out the SULI program.  Unfortunately, the first deadline is February 1, but you still have a few days.  In this program, you can apply for an internship at any of the 17 labs, but you have to pick one lab as your first choice and a backup second choice as well.

I should also add that DoE also has programs for community college students, pre-service teachers, and faculty and student teams to perform research at national labs.

As for graduate students, each lab has its own way of administering graduate student programs, so you'll have to check with the individual labs.

If you're a high school student, I know that we have a program at our laboratory but I don't know about the others.

Anybody interested in working on load balancing or mixed-integer linear programming problems, and/or writing lots of C++ code this summer?  Then do I have an opportunity for you!  Leave me a comment (they're moderated; I won't publish anything with personal info) for details.

Update

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and prayers.

My grandma died yesterday morning.  After consulting with the doctor, who concluded that there was no hope left, they removed her from the ventilator and she died soon after.  I was not at the hospital during that event, but I did go to visit the day before.  The decision to remove the artificial support was a good one, although of course it was very sad.

We returned home yesterday, but we'll be heading back on Thursday in order to make it to the funeral on Friday.  My sister Rachel is coming in from Vancouver, but she's not the one with the longest journey; that's one of my cousins, who's flying in from Germany.

I'm feeling really exhausted and emotionally drained right now.  I'm trying to take good care of myself and get enough sleep so I don't get sick.  Good night!

Bad News

My grandmother (not this one, the other one) had surgery a few weeks ago, which ended up causing some complications. She couldn't breathe without assistance, and now she has an infection in her lungs that has caused her kidneys to shut down and she is probably not much longer for this world.

So we are off to Evansville, Indiana in the morning, to be there for my dad during this difficult time. Any positive thoughts, prayers, etc. that you could spare in our general direction would be a big help.

Important Announcement

I am pleased to report that Vinny pee-peed in the potty this evening.  It was just a tiny trickle, but it definitely happened.

Inauguration Day

I didn't get a chance to see any of the inauguration events as they were happening, because I was at work, but I did read President Obama's speech and a few other speeches.

Among those other speeches that I read, I was particularly curious to read the invocation by Rick Warren.  A lot of people who voted for Obama were particularly upset by the choice of Warren for the invocation.  Of particular offense were his words comparing loving, committed same-sex relationships to incest and bestiality.  It seemed somewhat inappropriate for a man who ostensibly supports the rights of gays to invite a man with such hateful views to headline his inauguration, but I chalked it up to Obama's political savvy, which is far superior to mine.  Warren supports Obama on several issues that other conservatives do not, so I can see that this is a political move.

Mostly I was interested to see after all the uproar what sort of thing he would have to say.  It ended up being rather bland and mostly innocuous.  (Here's a transcript in case you're interested.)  What follows is my critique.

I liked some of the things he had to say.  Metaphorically speaking, I would agree that "Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven."  (Of course I don't agree literally, since I don't believe in God.)  Like Warren, I hope that Obama will have the wisdom to lead us in humility, the courage to lead us with integrity, and the compassion to lead us with generosity.

The last part of the prayer is where it fails.  From here on out, it follows the pattern of "[God] forgive us when we do X" (where X represents a Bad Thing).  I find this a very weak message, and a morally and intellectually lazy demand on God.

It would have been a much more powerful message if he'd said "Help us learn to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect they deserve," rather than "Forgive us when we fail to treat our fellow human beings and all the earth with the respect they deserve," for example.

Supposing for a minute that the Christian god exists, surely He would want to help us to become better people, rather than simply forgiving our mistakes.  Surely He would want us to seek the forgiveness of those we have wronged; to right the wrongs we have committed; to prevent those transgressions from ever occurring again.  This is a lot more work than just feeling badly or saying that you're sorry, but it's the only way to show both God and those you have wronged that you truly understand.

After all, actions speak louder than words.

Telephone Update

So after further investigation, we have determined that the problem with our phone does not actually lie inside our house. I used our multimeter to measure the current within the lines and found that it was extremely weak (somewhere around 0.667 mA, whereas from what I've read, it should be at least 20 mA). The test jack outside, which had worked last night, no longer works. Jeff called the phone company again, and their automatic test confirmed that it there was a problem somewhere along the lines. They're sending out a technician tomorrow to fix the line.

Telephone Troubles

Apparently there is a problem with our phone line and we aren't getting any phone service. We tried to make an outbound call yesterday evening, and it was then that we discovered we had no dial tone.

For your erudition, there is a test phone jack in the phone box on the outside of your house. We tried that test phone jack and were able to get a dial tone. Unfortunately for us, that means the problem lies within our house.

So it looks like my day off tomorrow will be spent fixing the phone.

My Multiple Left Feet

I have never considered myself athletic by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't know for sure, but I would guess that Vinny inherited his late onset of walking from both parents, not just Jeff (whose mother has confirmed that he didn't walk until 17 months). I was always tall, which didn't help in the coordination department either.

Growing up, I was always self-conscious about my body and its lack of coordination. Anything academic or musical came effortlessly, so I wasn't accustomed to the idea of having to actually try or work hard at something. Instead, I was embarrassed and felt like any complex physical activity would be impossible.

Another thing working against me was my mom's outlook on her own body. She apologized multiple times for being so unathletic and children inherit their athleticism from their mothers, so.... It just confirmed what I believed about myself: I could never do anything athletic in nature.

I was able to rationalize around it quite beautifully. I didn't want to do it anyhow. I had better things to spend my time on. I had a brain to cultivate and my body was little more than a vessel in which my brain was stored.

This type of rationalization is a trap that many otherwise intelligent people fall into. When things get hard, we stop trying, because it's somehow safer to fail outright than to chance failing while trying. "If I'd tried," we rationalize, "I could have succeeded." As I always said to myself, I could be an athlete if I tried. I just don't want to put in that much effort.

It wasn't until I had to develop some actual study habits (i.e., in graduate school) that I began to put that rationalization to rest. I progressed through graduate school because I took a chance on learning to study, and risked failing while trying.  My success in that endeavor helped put the first cracks in the wall of rationalization.

And as I matured as a person and got more in touch with my own desires (something that was accelerated by my parents' divorce and the countless hours of therapy that followed), I realized that I had always wanted to learn karate. Finally I got up the courage to take that risk, and went on to be remarkably successful in karate, earning a brown belt and even teaching children's karate.

Another athletic dream I have long held is the desire to run a marathon. I remember watching the 2004 Olympic marathons, transfixed. I thought to myself, if I could learn karate, what could stop me from learning to run a marathon?

Oh, Rebecca, I said to myself, you don't even know where to begin. Plus, you have weak knees and you are still too overweight.

I didn't learn how to run a marathon at that time, but I did begin running a little bit. I ran to my bus stop every day (a distance of only a couple of blocks), and I checked out a couple of books on running and read them. I listened to some of my peers talk about running and asked them questions. But I never took the leap. I soon graduated, moved to Tennessee, started my new job, had a baby, and then took another job. But the desire never left me.

Then, last month I was talking to one of my colleagues about her training for the upcoming half-marathon at the end of March. She asked me if I was interested in training for it. I took a deep breath and confessed to her my secret desire, but explained that I had never run more than a mile. Realistically, I would not be able to train up to a half-marathon between now and then.

She then asked me whether I'd be interested in training up to a 5K for starters, and then work on getting to a longer distance after that. I said yes, but that I needed to get a good sports bra before I could even think about running. So we agreed on a date by which I would have all the necessary gear.

I've been training for a week now, and I can already feel myself improving.  The first day, I thought I would never resume breathing normally.  Today, covering the same distance but doing more running than last week, I was only somewhat winded.  Gradually we will work up to longer and longer runs, culminating in a 5K at the end of March.

Adventures with Laundry

Last week when I was folding Vinny's fresh-from-the-dryer laundry, I noticed that a lot of his clothes had green streaks on them. I was bewildered, until I recalled that earlier, I had taken 2.5 crayons out of the washer, and the half-crayon was green.

I examined the dryer drum and noticed that it was a delightful green color. Then I asked the internets how to clean it up. The consensus was that WD40 would clean it up, but that a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser or a paste of Comet cleaner would work in combination with elbow grease. I was somewhat fearful of using (combustible) oil in the dryer. Jeff tried to clean it with the Magic Eraser but it didn't come up very easily. Then he tried the Comet paste and that worked better.

As a test, we put an hold towel in the dryer to see if it would come out green. No green was detected, so we resumed using the dryer.

Now all I have to do is get the crayon marks out of his clothing. Some of them I don't really care about (undershirts and such) but there are some shirts with long green streaks on them. So I'd better do that soon.

Adventures in Painting

The previous owners of our house had... interesting... taste in wall decor. They had painted some faux bricks on the walls of the living room and dining room, which could have been cool but just ended up looking tacky instead. They were going for a sort of French Bistro look, I think -- a look that is incongruous with a basement ranch house from the 1960's.

We've been in the house for nearly three years now, and it wasn't until today that we finally got rid of the final remnants of this disaster-in-paint that was our walls. We had redecorated the dining room, where the bulk of the ugliness was, just before Vinny was born, but we hadn't done anything with the living room until this summer.

This was in part because we do not use the living room. The living room furniture from our (much smaller) house in Illinois is downstairs in the family room, and we hadn't bothered to buy any furniture for the upstairs. So it is basically an empty room, which confused our nosy neighbors when they tried to figure out if we'd moved in yet. Right now, it has become a de facto toy room, where Vinny's indoor swing/slide and kitchen set live. We have a piano in that room too, one we bought from our next-door neighbor when he was moving away. But that's really all the furnishings we have for that room right now.

The non-faux-brick sections of the walls were a tannish mustard color -- sort of on the Grey Poupon side of the mustard spectrum, vs. the radioactive yellow color of fast-food mustard. We have now painted the room a light blue -- a color that perfectly matched the sky this afternoon as we were painting.

It looks beautiful. We are really pleased with the color and with our excellent painting job. It was a joint effort. In the morning, I watched Vinny while Jeff painted, and then when Vinny was napping, I took over painting from Jeff. He did the majority of the painting, because he's just a lot faster than I am at it, but I did do the majority of the top coat of the paint.

We did only the living room, but at some point we'll have to paint the hallway too because the interior living room wall extends into the main hallway. But for now we just blocked it off at one point and called it the edge of the living room.

The plan is to make the living room into a really comfortable, relaxing space. Vinny's toys will probably have to go elsewhere. We are not in a huge hurry to furnish it, so we'll take our time and get what we really want. Tentatively, we're thinking of a relaxing fountain, some better blinds, and some really comfortable furniture.

Labor Day Labors

This morning, Jeff mowed the lawn. In the lawn, he discovered that there was some poison ivy that had spread from the Evil Poison Ivy Patch in the corner of the yard.

That was the final straw. That poison ivy had been spreading for a long time, and I'd long been afraid to touch it. I'm not allergic to poison ivy (surprising, given my other skin allergies), but I was afraid to expose myself to it and become allergic. Also, today is a really hot day and I wasn't that excited about going outside. But I realized that I needed to just get over it and do what needed to be done. I decided to exterminate the Evil Poison Ivy Patch.

I got dressed in a long shirt, overalls, long socks, and shoes. I tied all my hair back, put on a face mask, and donned two long rubber gloves. Then I went outside and tackled that poison ivy.

I wasn't able to completely destroy it but I made quite a bit of progress. I filled a large black trash bag with poison ivy leaves, branches, and runners. There was even one big runner that was probably an inch in diameter that I was able to pull up and throw away. There's still quite a bit more to dig up but I'd say the war is on, and I'm winning.

Friday Night Serendipity

On Thursday I sat down for lunch with a colleague of mine, who was seated next to an Important Person. I asked my colleague if he and his wife (who came along to see the sights of Seattle) had any plans for Friday night. He replied that they were going to see the Seattle Mariners Baseball game. The Important Person asked if he was interested in our Computer Vendor's box seats at the game, because the Vendor had offered them to him but he couldn't go to the game. After my colleague picked his jaw up off the floor, he said, "YES!" so the Important Person called the Vendor and inquired as to whether the seats were still available. As it turned out, there were four tickets available. My colleague asked me if I wanted to come along, and I said sure. I'm not a huge baseball fan but it sounded like it could be fun.

So I arrived at Safeco Field at 5:30 pm Friday. The Vendor's tickets were for the Diamond Club, which are the most expensive seats in the house. This is because it's not just a place to sit (although the seats were really good too -- maybe the fifth row back from home plate); you also get to partake of a buffet dinner before the game starts. Then, while the game is being played, you have a card where you can check off whatever foods you want, pass it to the end of the row, and receive your food within the next half-inning.

I called Jeff during the game, and asked him if the game was being shown on TV. I was curious as to whether he could see us, because we were so close to home plate. He found the game on our TV, and as it turned out, we were sitting just out of view when they focused on the batter. But he could see things in the background that I could see. As we were talking, he heard people cheering in the background and asked me what had happened. "He hit a single," I said. Jeff saw the batter hit the single about 10 or 15 seconds after I did. So I guess when they call it "live," it's on a bit of a delay.

It was a lot of fun and I'm glad I got to go. My colleague was also grateful to me for coincidentally talking to him about his Friday night plans in front of the right person!

Career Day

Thanks to everybody for all your advice on career day. I gave a 30-minute presentation full of slides with interesting pictures. I began by asking who liked math. I got a show of a few hands. Then I said, "I'm glad that some people here like math. But for the rest of you, I have bad news. Any career is going to involve math to a greater or lesser degree. And generally speaking, the more math that's involved, the more money you'll make."

I had some pictures from popular television shows to get them interested. I asked them if anybody watched "Gray's Anatomy." There was a show of a few hands. "Well," I said. "What if you're a doctor and you prescribe 200 mg of a very potent medicine instead of 200 µg?"
I also had a picture from the show "CSI." Again, I asked if anyone liked that show. And then I asked what would happen if you were working on the very last DNA sample and you added 5 mL of solvent when you meant to add 50 µL? In both of these cases, knowledge of math is vital for job success.
Then I talked about my job. I told them about our supercomputers, giving the really cool numbers about how many flops* the machines do; our huge, expensive cooling system (capable of cooling 640 large houses); how much our power bill is ($5-7 million/year), etc.

And I told them about the science. I showed some pretty pictures of various applications, starting off with combustion. I asked who got to school today thanks to the power of internal combustion. There was some confusion, but after it was established that I was talking about engines, just about everyone raised their hands. Then I asked who had heard their parents complaining about the high price of gas lately. Everyone raised their hands for that one. Well, I said, that's because some of the best cars, such as mine, get maybe 30-40 mpg. But wouldn't it be cool if we could get more like 300 or 400 mpg? That's why we study combustion.

I ended the presentation by talking about my educational background and then what they could do if they were interested in a career like mine. I told them what sort of educational activities they should do but above all encouraged them to be persistent and don't let other people discourage them. I also showed a slide with pictures of some of the youngest and most attractive people I work with. In addition to being more visually appealing, they are more diverse, and it is part of my mission as a member of an underrepresented group in computer science to encourage students from underrepresented groups to join us. (I showed pictures of three people, two of whom were women, and two of whom were African-American.)

After my presentation was over, I got quite a few good questions. One joker asked something about my advanced age, but otherwise the students were genuinely curious. I felt that career day was a success and I'm grateful for all your advice.


* A flop (in addition to being a bad joke that nobody laughs at)** is a FLoating-point OPeration -- basically, any arithmetic operation involving numbers with decimal points, such as 1.1+1.1. Our big machine does 263 teraflops per second, or 263 trillion floating point operations per second. If everyone in the world were capable of doing one floating point operation per second, and we all worked together, it would take us nearly half a day to do what it takes this machine one second to do.

** Standard leadership computing facility tour guide joke.

Memorial Day Fun

My plan for Jeff's Father's Day gift was to get him a nice grill. I know nothing of grills, however, so I wasn't sure what to get. Luckily, my boss is quite knowledgeable about the subject, and found a good one in the newspaper circulars. It was on sale for Memorial Day, though, so I decided to go ahead and get it early.

Seeing as it's impossible to hide a grill, and that even if it were possible, Jeff has psychic powers that give him the ability to discern the contents of any gift package, box, or envelope, I decided to just let him know what he was getting. My boss graciously helped me go pick up the grill in his enormous truck (it wasn't going to fit in our VW Beetle or even our Chevy Impala), and he and Jeff unloaded it and put it on our deck.

Here's a link to what I got him: it's a Kenmore gas grill with 770 square inches of grilling space. It also has a side burner that you can use like a normal stove burner. (I paid less than they are currently asking for it.) He is really enjoying it so far. He grilled out twice during the Memorial Day weekend, so I consider it a successful gift.

Tooth Update

Thanks for all your kind words in the comments of the previous post. It meant a lot to me. I really appreciated hearing from all of you, even those of you who are complete strangers to me. Thank you for taking some time out of your busy life to comfort someone you don't even know.

I took Vinny to the dentist yesterday morning. He's a pediatric dentist who was recommended by my (extremely young, fresh out of school) dental hygienist, who went to him when she was growing up.

Anyhow, the dentist took a look at his tooth and told me that it was unlikely that the baby tooth damaged the bud of the permanent tooth growing above it, and if it did, it probably didn't do much damage. The baby tooth could take up to a year to descend back to where it belongs. At this point, we don't know if it's going to die or not, but I'm to bring Vinny back in a month and we'll reevaluate then.

I felt relieved by the visit, but it was a bit traumatic for Vinny. The nurse and I held him down while the dentist checked his tooth and squeezed out some gooey white substance from under his gum. "Is that pus?!?!" I gasped in horror. But he said he didn't think it was, because not enough time had passed for so much pus to form. But just in case, he wrote a prescription for amoxicillin. And Jeff and I are to wipe Vinny's front teeth with a piece of gauze with peroxyl mouthwash solution on it, twice a day. It feels so cruel to do because it makes Vinny weep and beg for us to stop. But it has to be done.

Anyhow, I'm feeling better about the whole thing and Vinny is getting better. He's able to sleep through the night now (unlike the first two nights) and his appetite has returned. The mouth is still tender, though; tonight, he was goofing off and waving his arms around and accidentally bonked himself in the mouth, which clearly hurt a lot. But in time, it will be better.

A Landmark Decision

I was ecstatic when I heard the news that California's State Supreme Court has struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriages!

This is a very important issue to me, because half of the members of my first family (excluding myself) are gay. I have always been a proponent of marriage equality, but the fact that it directly impacts my loved ones raises its importance to me.

I am pleased by their decision because it underscores the fact that marriage, in the eyes of the government, is independent of religion. The only objections to same-sex marriage are religious in nature, and therefore irrelevant when making the decision on whose commitments can be granted legal recognition.

I got goosebumps when I read the wonderful news in an email from the ACLU. Here are some particularly poignant excerpts:

Simply having the California Supreme Court say that constitutional principles demand that marriage be open to same-sex couples is an enormous win. This Court has a remarkable history of leadership on civil rights and civil liberties. It made landmark decisions on race and sex discrimination, on freedom of speech and privacy, and on treatment of the disabled and poor people long before the U.S. Supreme Court. No court in America has more authority to say that marriage for same-sex couples is an issue of basic freedom than this one.

...

Marriage in California will transform the discussion of marriage nationwide. California has one of the largest economies in the world. Given the state’s economic clout, the fact that California is marrying same-sex couples will put considerable pressure on the rest of the country to recognize those marriages.

Even more important, the rest of the country recognizes that California is America’s cultural trendsetter, that cultural change in California is usually a preview of what is to come in the rest of the United States. Most Americans already believe that marriage for same-sex couples is bound to happen sooner or later. I think marriage in California will help persuade many of them that this is an issue of basic fairness, and that the time for it is now.

...

Thank you, California, for giving those of us who value equality a little hope for the future! With a lot of elbow grease and a little luck, the committed relationships of same-sex couples such as my own family members could be legally recognized within a decade, which pleases me to no end.

A New Doctor in the House

My sister Laura successfully defended her dissertation on Friday! Congratulations, Laura!!!

She invited her sisters and their families to converge upon Charlottesville for the occasion. Jeff, Vinny, and I came for the weekend, as did Rachel. It was an exciting time for all.

Although we were not able to attend the defense itself, in the afternoon she held a special, informal colloquium about her research. So we got a taste of what she has devoted the majority of her working hours to over the past couple of years.

On Friday night we had a sisters' night out, with just the three of us sisters. We went out to dinner and had a great time together.

On Saturday she held an afternoon soirée celebrating her successful defense, for which I made a delicious, dissertation-shaped cake. (Photos of the cake-baking and decorating process will be posted sometime later, after I get them downloaded from the camera.)

In the evening we left Vinny with Anne's mom and attended a wonderful play called The Elvis Project. A blurb from the venue's website:

The Elvis Project is a collage-like meditation on the multiple meanings of Elvis Presley. A look at how one man, incidentally the King of rock’n'roll, has affected the lives of many. Two short plays: Graceland and ‘Asleep on the Wind’ by Ellen Byron. Featuring works by Charlottesville playwrights Robert Wray and Doug Grissom. Performances are March 13-15 and 20-22 at 8:00pm. Tickets are pay-what-you-can.

During the intermission they served fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. The guy who played Elvis was a familiar face to Laura and Anne: he works at a restaurant they frequent. Rachel got an autographed copy of a picture of Elvis (the actor's picture, signed as Elvis).

Rachel left early Sunday morning, but the rest of us enjoyed a delicious Easter dinner at Anne's mother's house. We left in the early afternoon and made it back home by about 11 p.m. I took a day of vacation today before I get up extra early tomorrow morning to head to Austin, Texas for a meeting.