Le Blogger

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