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Charleston SC I road trip to Charleston, SC. It was quite a fun trip, and here are some of the highlights. Charleston is four hours away to the south of Durham. To get there, we took the 40 all the way down to near Wilmington, then switched onto I95. Our first stop was in Summerville, a small town 40 minutes northwest of Charleston. We headed straight for the historic downtown area, and parked next to the Town Hall. I mistakenly assumed the Town Hall would be some sort of visitor center/ museum and walked up to the reception desk to ask for interesting things to do in the area. The receptionist didn't quite know what to say, except that people just walk around and look at things. That's when I realized this was a real town hall, and not just an old historic building. So we walked around the area, and saw a candle shop called Lowcountry Candle . The shop owner makes all her own candles right in the shop. You can even custom order candle scents and colors. I had a nice conversat

Check out these photos of clouds ! I like the one by Tanis Danielson as it looks like a Chinese dragon descending from the sky. Here's PC World's 20 Most Innovative Products of the Year . Interesting to see how the world and tech are moving along. From this we see how people are integrating technology into their lives to make it better and more efficient. It's also a way to figure out where the next big $$ can be made.

Christmas Party Here's photos of the food we prepared for the party.

Yummy steak dinner!!

Is this possible?!? Tonight I went to Raleigh's Progress Energy Center Memorial Auditorium to see the Carolina Ballet's annual performance of "Nutcracker!" It's wonderful watching the graceful and elegant ballet set to Tsaikovsky's music. The little chocolate truffles at the start of the 2nd Act before the appearance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Mother Ginger's gingerbread cookies were so cute. The only blemish of the show were the three Candy Canes. One of them was always half a beat behind the other two, and so the whole sequence seemed awkward. For those who don't know the story, here's the description from the program guide. ***** Act I-Christmas Eve It is Christmas Eve in the the home of Dr. Stahlbaum, a city official, and his wife who are preparing for a Christmas Party. The children, Clara and Fritz, having fallen asleep waiting for the arrival of the guests, awaken in great anticipation. Soon the guests arrive with their children, and there

Sweet Lego Sculpture . Duke's basketball team is doing surprisingly well this year. With last year's two leading scorers gone, no one expected much from Duke. But, the coach has managed to put together a working, good team! So I'm definitely going to keep up to date on the games. It's almost another year. Amazing at how fast the time goes. What are your new year resolutions? This Winter I don't plan to take an extensive holiday. I'll be working weekdays in the lab. That doesn't mean I won't take it a little easier; Friday I'll be going to see The Nutcracker ballet in Raleigh and next weekend I may plan a sort trip to Charleston, SC.

Here's a coat I bought a month or two ago at JCrew. Pretty nice!

It's been a while since my last update, and I promise to get to blogging more. Another semester has gone by, though for me it doesn't make a difference as I don't have any classes to take. I did get a lot accomplished this term in the lab though. I'm not close to finishing, but I feel like I made significant progress and I'm very happy about that. I have been able to complete a low noise cryogenic single stage self-biased high frequency amplifier with 18 dB of gain, and am in the process of building a two stage device. Might not sound particularly difficult for those who have been in the microwave business for a while, but for the last two months this was all that I have been working on. It does feel good though to now be able to say I understand what's going on, and more importantly, that I've made a working, functional device. The amplifier certainly feels like my first real accomplishment in the lab, since I essentially put everything together, with every

Is it possible?

This is extremely addicting. This online game has been around for some time, but only recently did I start playing, largely because my labmates are hooked onto it. I resisted for a while and occasionally watched them play, but now, I'm hooked. Of course, I still get enough work done! But it's fun. Check it out at www.kdice.com.

Just found this way to share iCal without .Mac. Check it out. It's good if you have multiple machines. Click here

Watched a movie tonight called The Fountain. Quite an interesting movie; it's a fantasy / mixed with reality story dealing with life, love, death, and the afterlife. The main character is a scientist who is looking to find the cure to cancer. He is hoping to find a way to successfully remove tumors mainly because his beloved wife has cancer and is dying from it. He wants to find the cure to save her. She is in the last stages, and has, unlike him, slowly come to terms with her own death. She has spent time writing a novel that originally starts with the Spanish inquisition and eventually becomes a search for the Tree of Life. This Tree was hidden by God from Mankind after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge and were banished from Eden. Supposedly, the Mayans knew the location of the Tree, and the Spanish conquistador was sent there to find it, and bring back the "fountain" for everlasting youth and life. This story is intertwined with the current age story of the

Had a nice Thanksgiving trip to San Francisco, California! This was a weeklong trip starting on Monday, and originally to end on Friday, but actually ended Saturday. I arrived in SF Monday afternoon and Debby came to pick me up. We took the BART and other means of public transportation to her place. I really got to see SF up close. I was surprised at how "bian" or squat the houses are...and most of them are old AND cost up to 600-800K! Ridiculously amazing! Already this was looking to be a trip of several things 1) I was going to be stuffed with a ridiculous amount of food 2) I was in for the cold. SF is actually warmer than Durham, but the ocean breeze is chilly, and the apartment didn't have heat! Dinner was at Hotei's, a Japanese restaurant. I was stuffed. Tuesday I had an opportunity to visit Debby's sister's kindergarten. She's teaching at an immersion program kindergarten. So the kids are multiracial, but the class is entirely taught in Chinese! Not

Go Columbia! Roar Lions Roar! Sat in the buffer zone. To keep the peace. Actually, to cheer for Columbia!! Glitch shows that Columbia has the commanding lead! Asian guy on the court!! Columbia is obviously so much more diverse of a team (racially). Next videos of the cheerleading and Columbia's initial three point lead! Oh and Dan Bing means "Egg Biscuit" or "Egg Pancake." So I first put the egg down, and you can mix whatever into that you like (ham, cheese, etc), then after that's about done, put the tortilla and then fold it up. I like it with "chung tzy 粽子" sauce (you know the pyramid-shaped dumpling made of glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo or reed leaves), hot sauce and oyster sauce, or just some sweet and sour sauce.

Using tortilla and eggs, you can make homemade "Dan Bing!"

Just had our Tri-School basketball and volleyball games again. This time UNC-Charlotte actually drove all the way over to join our competition. Duke did decently, winning one and losing one. Our record overall is not stellar, but I think everyone had a good time. I think sports are important, for health and for lots of other things. It brings people together. There were probably over 100 people in the gym tonight, including all the players and supporters. I had fun playing volleyball too. It's been a while, and I realized how much I enjoy the game. It's not as contact heavy as basketball, and much more of a team sport. Things are going quite well lately. I haven't updated as much, and I promise to get back to doing that more. I've actually been quite busy in lab, trying to understand how some electronics work. Today I made a tiny tiny breakthrough and finally understood how a simple piece of electronics works. Just the feeling of really understanding something, even tho

Yesterday was Halloween? Boo! There's a corn maze in the area, about 30 minute drive up from here. For Halloween, they touched up the maze into a Haunted Trail! It was pretty fun, especially watching my friend get completely spooked out everytime one of the ghosts and ghouls popped out of nowhere from the deeps of the corn. You can find out more about the maze at www.mckeemaze.com ! Unfortunately no pictures. I was too busy laughing and getting spooked. By the way, here's something that's interesting. Does a duck's quack echo ?

Fun today. Hiking at Eno River, where I go at least once a year. In the afternoon, a trip to the Nasher Museum to see the new exhibit---Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China. Here's what's written about the exhibit on Nasher's website, www.nasher.duke.edu. ***** Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China offers the first comprehensive look at innovative photo and video art produced in China since the mid-1990s. The exhibition features 130 works by 60 Chinese artists, many of whom are exhibiting in this country for the first time. Their works, often ambitious in scale and experimental in nature, present a range of highly individual responses to the unprecedented changes now taking place in China’s economy, society and culture. In addition to introducing a remarkable body of work to American audiences, the exhibition also provides insight into the dynamics of Chinese culture at the start of the 21st century. The exhibition was was c

Pics!

A long time creation of mine. I've always sketched creatures of the basic form, rounded head, eyes, nose...but today I decided to make a specific creature, Nicholas "The Green Dragon." In Chinese, his name is 你酷啦斯. Here's Nicholas as different personas. I actually wanted to do more of an Andy Warhol type thingy, but this is what ended up happening. Based on a photo I took during my recent NY trip, but taking the liberty of imagining a mark in the sky at night... Rose. The right and left sides were experiments in colouring, turns out, I like the plain red better (without any orange and other colours). Earings! Tonight was arts & crafts night! Basically, a pleasant evening at home with enjoyable music. I spent time drawing with my new box of Faber-Castell oil pastels. Debby made earings! Fun!

Beautiful dancing. The guy just wouldn't get out of the way!! Went to check out Hindu Diwali Festival yesterday. The food was authentic (though not quite enough, but can't complain as it was only $3), the shows were pretty cool, and I really liked the happy and festive atmosphere.

Very cool. Check it .

Had a nice dinner with NEHS alums who are now Duke unders at Basil & Lime in Chapel Hill. Everyone ordered the 2R, i.e. the pho with everything. Delicious.

Sorry I don't know how to write the Chinese...but the "Gua Bao" were delicious.

I've started a new blog! This one is devoted to scientific readings of mine. Please read and provide comments! I won't update as often there of course, but the goal is to provide summary, critique, and hopefully original ideas for every (as many as possible) paper I read.

Made the switch to beta blogger. Not sure what extra functions will be accessible yet but I'll be finding out. The switch basically links blogger to google account and all other google related apps.

Frank Wilczek at the table! Leon Cooper showing off his new technology, and taking pics of everyone at the table. Pic with TD Lee. I had a bit of a cold, so orange juice. I did drink some red wine later, ok! Norman Ramsey at the podium. Lee and Chu. Fun day at Columbia. Listened to several nice talks and then dinner at the Columbia Club. To our surprise, we were placed at TD's table. Met several well known physicists: Leon Cooper, Norman Ramsey, Frank Wilczek...the list goes on.

One more picture post related to the TD Lee 80th birthday symposium and dinner at the Columbia Club. A couple videos from the trip to be posted too!

Pics from this weekend's trip to NY. Much more pics in next few posts.

Here's something I've made in the machine shop, a steel c-clamp. Fun!

Camp Out begins! A really really burnt marshmellow. Saturday Sept. 16. Sooo Tired. After 6 am Sept. 17. Cleaning up the camp sites and preparing to go home (but not before knowing the results of the lottery). Sunday night at my place trying to divide up the games. Our group of four got two tickets! Went to Camp Out 2006. This is the yearly event where graduate students "party" for 36 hours straight in order to be entered into a lottery for basketball season tickets. The way it works is graduate students tent up (or the richer MBA and Law school students rent RVs and UHaul trucks) and randomly wait for whistle checks. Each camper is allowed to miss one whistle check. More than that and you are disqualified. After 36 hours, those who are qualified are entered into a random lottery and the winners are given the opportunity to pay for the $150 season ticket. It's pretty crazy to go through all that for the chance to be able to pay. The past couple of years I was decidedly aga