:: The Ruminant ::

The Ruminant's first visitor, amayamaya, left a nice comment requesting more posts. Just as retailers often display their first dollar, I am going to display this first comment for a while. Rest assured, amayamaya, when I get my thirty minutes of fame, you will have your fifteen. I hope I'm not too selfish to keep some of the fame for myself.

:: Sunday, April 27, 2003 ::

Angry Inches

A theater company in Edmonton has been doing a production of "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" for the past month. I didn't manage to see it before my trip to Salt Lake, and I expected to miss out on it altogether. In Salt Lake, it turned out that another acting company was also doing a perfomance of Hedwig. Jim and I looked into it, but the show was sold out for all performances. I thought I was out of luck, but the Edmonton group decided to extend their production by another week. Erin and I went and saw it today. It was the last performance, and it fully rocked.


:: Chris 9:07 PM [+] ::
...

Meat Pies (mmmm)

My friend the Chairman (aka Michael in New Zealand) just added a post to his blog about meat pies. I spent a few weeks in Australia a while back, and the one thing that I truly truly miss is the meat pies. Strange, of all the memories I have from my trip, the most vivid one is of pies stuffed with beef. And bacon that was really ham. They put "steak pie with french fries" on the breakfast menu, and it was great. I long for the day when I might return to the land down under and sample another of those pies.


:: Chris 9:39 PM [+] ::
...

7.84 mm2

After bitching and whining about the inadequate space allocated to my microchip design, I ultimately withdrew my entry from the last scheduled fabrication. I resubmitted the design with a strategy of making them feel guilty. It worked. Last time I asked for 6.25 mm2 and they offered me 4 mm2. This time I moaned and cried and they gave me 7.84 mm2. How 'bout that? Now I can design the chip of my dreams.

I still have no Masters degree though. I've sent some random angry letters around to administrators at the University of Utah. Some of them have been forwarded to my advisor, Christian, by a frightened office staffer. I was discussing the situation with Christian yesterday, and he simply said, "poor Sally" (Sally being the department's grad student secretary). On one hand, I feel bad that Sally must be the recipient of my angsty remarks. On the other hand, she isn't being particularly helpful, and that's her job. I may be annoying people by making a stink over my degree, but my overwhelming experience has been that you won't get anywhere by being quiet and passive. I can't accept that a single fucking sheet of paperwork that I filled out three years ago overrules the rest of my work at the University.

I currently have no idea who to talk to at the University. Christian has suggested that the issue might have to go as high as the University President before I can get anywhere. So I've been picking random targets for emails. Here's one I sent to Stayner Landward, the Dean of Students. He's forwarded this on to someone else who may or may not have jurisdiction over the issue:

Dean Landward:

I was enrolled in the U of U ECE PhD program from fall 2000 through spring 2002. In spring of 2002, my advisor moved to the University of Alberta. I decided (on short notice) that my thesis would be best served if I also went to the University of Alberta. I took a lot of courses in Utah, though, and it would be a shame if I had nothing to show for them. It turns out that I completed the credit hours required for an ME degree. I'm being told, though, that I can't be given the ME degree without re-admitting to the university and taking a 3 credit hour course. This course would not contribute to my degree; it would simply qualify me as a currently enrolled student, which for some reason is necessary to be given credit for work completed in the past. Moreover, it seems that in order to re-admit I must be granted a "retro-active leave of absence" by the Dean of Engineering.

From my perspective, this seems at best absurd. The University is telling me that I need no more work to satisfy the requirements of the degree itself. If I must register and pay tuition for an unnecessary phantom course, that sounds to me like a bribe. Is the University of Utah in the business of selling degrees, or awarding them on the basis of having earned them? Have I completely lost my ability to assess the logic of a situation? Or is the Mad Hatter now writing University policy?

Yeah, I'm an obnoxious bastard.


:: Chris 9:51 AM [+] ::
...

One Small Step...

I finally got my wireless network card working under Linux! This is one more step toward total freedom from Windows. If I can just somehow convince Tanner Labs to produce a Linux version of their chip software, I can sever all ties to the evil empire. Ha ha ha ha ha!

In other news, I discovered a whole nuther semester of courses that I took, giving me even more credits toward my hypothetical Master's degree. They especially better give it to me now.


:: Chris 11:02 AM [+] ::
...

Renewed Appreciation

It only takes a few hours at the University of Utah to be reminded of what a hostile, dreary place it is. I walked through the halls of my old dungeon, the Merrill Engineering Building, and wondered how I'd ever accomplished anything in such a dismal place. Every face wore a scowl. People who no doubt recognized me gave no indication of it. I spoke to some people who knew me and they seemed annoyed, the way everyone always seems in that department. Even the building groans with anxiety. After some negotiations with the Registrar's office, I obtained a list of all my prior courses. If all goes well, I could leave today with a Master's degree. I'll probably get an ME (course-based, not thesis-based) because it won't be feasible for me to arrange a formal defense for a master's thesis. Sadly, though, the U of Utah ECE department has so laced the program with technicalities that I may not satisfy the requirements. I have taken more than double the number of course hours which would be required for a PhD or MS at any of the best universities, but most of my courses don't count. I took a bunch in excess of my BS requirements, but they don't count because I wasn't technically a graduate student when I took them. Other courses, such as coding theory, low-power circuit design, and information theory, don't count because they were listed as "special studies." I have taken every course at the University that is remotely related to my field and many more besides, but it still doesn't add up to a degree. It's no wonder the U of U has so many career students. Ultimately the department will decide whether I've earned my degree. If they have any decency or sense, they'll give it to me.


:: Chris 10:01 AM [+] ::
...

Repatriation

On Tuesday I hopped in my car and drove roughly 1200 miles from Edmonton to Salt Lake City. I've been digitally challenged ever since. My trip could, perhaps, have been better timed: my parents are getting high-speed internet next week after I leave (to replace their useless old phone line that can't even sustain a 36k connection), and Dave was here last week, and I missed him :(. I managed to get my W2 from the University, and I discovered why I haven't received W2's for the past two years. They were sending them to my sister's old house for some reason. My Clie decided to erase all of its data as soon as I got here. I lost all of my phone numbers, my schedule, various addresses, and my check-list of things to do while I'm here. Sucktacular.

The drive down was gorgeous. There is an area of northern Montana where the freeway crosses the Missouri river. The spot is simply breathtaking. Almost no one lives there. I nearly drove off the road looking at the hills, the river and the clouds. I didn't take any pictures of it :(. I would have spent all day there and been unsatisfied with what I could get with my digital camera. I had thought about grabbing my 35mm camera before I left Edmonton, but then I would have wasted many hours stopping for photos along the way. I did take some photos of my trip by just clicking the camera while driving. Here are some of the unrediculous ones:





:: Chris 3:07 PM [+] ::
...

Dreams

I seem to dream in repetitive themes. They aren't repetitive dreams, but underlying concepts seem to surface over and over. A few years ago I had almost nightly dreams in which I discovered a dead body tried to hide it. I had never had anything to do with the dead person, and usually I didn't know them. But I was always terrified of being implicated if I simply reported the body (the bodies were almost always in my house somewhere). So I would take the bodies around and try different things. I put them in dumpsters, but then removed them to look for some place better. I buried them but wasn't satisfied with the graves. I thought about lakes and rivers. The search for a good hiding place always became increasingly desperate as time passed. I was terrified of the police, but in these dreams I never once saw a cop. Typically I never even saw any other people. I went around to normal places but they were all strangely vacant, as though everyone wanted to leave me alone with my corpses and paranoia.

The potential symbolism in the above dreams is easy to probe. But more recently I've been experiencing a stranger pattern: time travel and Stephanie Geerlings. I don't usually (to my knowledge) have dreams involving either of these themes alone. In one dream I was younger (I reverted to about age 12), but I had full memories of my future life. I believe I encountered Stephanie in that dream while trying to contact a tow-truck company via a pay phone at the Grand Canyon. Last night I dreamed that I went back in time to prevent the murder of Stephanie Geerlings. For some reason this dream involved a lot of running through suburban houses filled with criminally insane middle aged men and women. It had kind of a David Lynch feel to it. I don't remember if Stephanie was even actually in that dream, but she was the premise at least. I'll send a box of fine Canadian candy bars to anyone who can make sense of these dreams for me.


:: Chris 8:43 PM [+] ::
...

Science Fair!

I judged at the Edmonton Regional Science Fair today. There were lots of interesting projects with entertaining names: "Bathroom bacteria -- the invisible invisible;" "Hair as fertilizer;" "Are grade 5 kids active enough?" "Why I don't like Kool-Aid;" "Catapult;" "Edible shampoo;" "Interesting iridology;" and "Is your world safe." One guy built an interferometer with a computer interface for automated measurements so that he could test the speed of light in various gasses relative to vaccum. Another guy figured out that if you burn potato peels in your fire place, it causes the soot in your chimney to become brittle and flake off, thereby preventing house fires due to clogged chimneys. Cool stuff. No photos this time.


:: Chris 7:05 PM [+] ::
...

A Parable

Today I was chatting with one of my supervisors about a rival researcher who will be visiting our department soon. We expressed our mutual concern that the visiting researcher does not embrace the collaborative spirit with other groups working in the same field, such as us. His group, we agreed, assumes an unearned air of superiority toward everyone else. They don't share complete information, and they publish inaccurate descriptions of our work in order to cast theirs in a better light.

"Perhaps we shouldn't make these complaints known when he comes," I said. "We should treat this as an opportunity to foster a better relationship with them. This is not a time to air grievances, but to nurture!"

"That's a good idea," said my supervisor. "But why did you raise and shake your clenched fist when you said 'nurture'?"

"Because," I replied, "I am an American!"


:: Chris 3:21 PM [+] ::
...

We finally had a warm spell last week. Most of the snow melted. I went for a walk around campus, and to my dismay I discovered that there is an LDS Institute of Religion on campus, within spitting distance of my office. The spindly fingers of Mormonism have spread nigh to the North Pole. There's no escape anywhere. I've seen some missionaries around town, but thankfully they leave me alone. In fact, I see missionaries almost everywhere I go, from Adelaide to Edmonton to DC to Munich. And they have never approached me, ever. I think my body secretes a natural "Mormon-off" chemical that repels missionaries. Perhaps I could harvest these secretions and market them. "Mormon-off: keep unwanted pests away. Works for 12 hours. At work and at play. Also try new DeepWoods Mormon-off."

I've been refining my theory of Mormon perception. I think the average Utah Mormon divides the world up into five categories:

• Mormons (righteous folk who can do no wrong)
• Potential converts (temporary friends and acquaintances, usually expiring within a few months)
• Jews (who are not "gentiles" and therefore have ambiguous classification in Mormonism)
• Others (non-Mormons who are unlikely to convert -- the minions of Satan)
• Celebrities (folks who would be minions of Satan except for their widespread popularity, which elevates them to the level of permanent potential convert)

Explanation: it seems as though Mormons who seek romantic involvement with non-Mormons are regarded as being in a state of sin. Someone like Larry King, on the other hand, is a self-proclaimed agnostic. Yet he has a successful marriage with a devoutly Mormon woman half his age who is also close friends with Marie Osmond. If you do a google search on Larry King and the Mormon church, you'll find a number of Mormon-authored articles which refer to King as though he were an honorary Mormon. He and his wife were certainly not married in the temple. In some circles in Utah, a non-temple marriage isn't even considered valid. Unless you're famous. That changes everything.



:: Chris 8:20 AM [+] ::
...