Want proof that appliance repair companies are slimy?

We had the oven repair guy out this morning to…well…repair our oven (duh). While he was out in the truck, I saw some of his paperwork on the counter. Notes on the page for his next job? “Requested 10% senior discount…quote higher to make up for it”.

Nice.

Tags: rant

It’s that time again

Time to plan and execute my holiday baking. Last year I made sugar cookies, thumbprint cookies, Russian tea cakes, nanaimo bars, corn flake wreaths, and English toffee.

This year I’d like to put spritz and cooky candies in the mix, which means getting rid of a couple of the ones from last year…so, I think the winners are:

• sugar cookies (always!)
• english toffee
• corn flake wreaths
• nanaimo bars
• spritz
• cooky candies

So, for the first time in many many years I won’t make the Russian tea cakes (a staple in my growing-up year holidays) and the thumbprint cookies (Andrew loves these, but we’ll be going to his parents’ house for Christmas, and his mom ususally makes them, so it seems silly to have them twice).

Now for the grocery shopping….

Tags: baking

Dizzy day

My stomach is finally feeling normal again, and I wake up with the world spinning. Ugh. After e-mailing work, I went back to bed and slept until 11AM — yikes! I hope I’m not coming down with something.

On a positive note, Andrew left me a cherry cordial Kiss before taking his bag to work, just ‘cuz he knew I wanted to try them. Yum.

Tags: health

What is it with laundry baskets and cats?

I was startled to see Artemis in the laundry basket on the bed when I came back upstairs after lunch. I wasn’t startled because she was in the basket — that’s perfectly natural for her — it’s just that she had been in the other basket all morning.

Then I saw what the problem was…

Tags: pets

Presentation Tips

From the many talks and presentations I’ve attended in the past several years, I have a few tips for presenters. These range from the appearance of the slides to the content and structure of the talk itself.

• Slide contents:
  • Don’t put up a slide with loads of graphics – parse them out on different slides, or pop them up one at a time as you talk about them.
  • Don’t put things on a slide that you don’t want to talk about – make it look like you put this talk together for this audience, and not that you’re just recycling something for a longer time slot.
• Slide layout/appearance:
  • Use a solid color as a background for all writing; a patterned background or a picture will have light and dark spots that make any font color hard to read.
  • Do not use red font on a dark blue background and don’t use yellow font on a white background. In fact, only use yellow if you’re using a black or dark blue background.
  • If in doubt, use black and white – this will make a better impression than a bad color combination.
• Talk contents/structure:
  • The best talks tell a story. They start with a little bit of background on the topic, then show the current results, and finally put them in the context of the background research. Most audiences don’t need all of the gory details of your research; only very specialized audiences need that. Give a good overview, and that will leave time for the context and summary.
  • Plan for your time slot – if you talk faster than the speed of light, no information is conveyed. Less is more, and a good story will stick with your audience better than a rapid-fire collection of disconnected bullet points.
  • Leave enough time for your summary. Don’t just put up a summary page during the question period. This leaves your audience with the choice of reading your summary points or listening to the questions.
• General comments:
  • Use the laser pointer judiciously, and don’t look away while pointing at something, because you’re more likely than not to dance the pointer around randomly.
  • Speak up and speak clearly.
  • Don’t mumble the end of your sentences – the audience doesn’t know what you’re thinking, and we need to hear every word. If you aren’t sure of something, don’t say it.
  • If you have a microphone, don’t be afraid of it! And make sure you put it on your “screen side”. That is, if you’re constantly turning to point things out on a screen, make sure the microphone is on that side, otherwise your voice will fade in and out as you point out important things on your slides.
  • Don’t sound bored with your own topic. If you aren’t at least a little bit excited about it, the audience won’t be, either.
  • Walking around the audience is just weird – it’s a clever way of keeping the audience’s eyes off of you, but is really uncomfortable for the audience.
  • Dress like you care just a little bit about what you’re doing; for heaven’s sake, wear pants that cover your crack (no kidding).

Tags: grad life

I don’t bear dude

Hot peppers are not good for Barb’s stomach…not quite as bad as those onion rings, but bad enough.

Ugh. I had hot peppers on a sandwich from Potbelly Sandwich Works on Friday at lunch. About 12:30 AM I woke up with horrible stomach pains — a bit like trying to digest a brick all night. I didn’t get much sleep, but instead tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position (there wasn’t one). I kicked Andrew out of the bed around 1:30 AM (we have a guest bed, so it’s not like I made him sleep on the couch or anything).

Yesterday sucked all together — I ate Saltines and soup, but even those upset my stomach. Fortunately, VH1 had a marathon of Season 5 of Surreal Life. I watched way too many episodes of it, though not all of them.

Feeling much better today, though eating anything still upsets my stomach. I hate having acid reflux.

Note to self: no hot peppers, no onion rings.

Tags: health

Book Catch-Up

I haven’t been reading as much as I usually do, but I’ve read more than I’ve blogged here. Here are the books I’ve finished in the last few months:

The Annals of the Heechee
by Frederik Pohl

I had been looking forward to this, the last installment of the Heechee books (well, at least the last featuring Robinette Broadhead). Sadly, the book did not live up to my expectations. Not even close.

I found myself often annoyed with the constant harping on the fact that Robinette is now digitized — not a “meat person”. We get explaination after explaination that he moves at higher speeds and that the speeds of “meat people” is way too slow for him. I didn’t need it beaten into my head.

The story does wrap up (sort of) the questions of what the Heechee are hiding from.

The Chronoliths
by Robert Charles Wilson

In early 21^st century Thailand, Scott Warden witnesses the sudden appearance of a 200-foot stone pillar inscribed with a military victory of “Kuin”…16 years in the future. The novel follows Scott over the next 16 years as he joins the team investigating these events and whether or not they can be reversed.

The story idea is compelling; however, it’s told from Scott’s “future” self. Annoyingly, he keeps forshadowing how much worse things are going to get. After the third or fourth time hearing “little did we know” or “that was only the beginning”, I was ready to toss the book. However, the story intrigued me enough that I wanted to finish it.

Dooms Day Book
by Connie Willis

In the future, the best way to study history is to go back in time. However, several eras are off-limits as being too dangerous. Kivrin was determined to go to the early 14^th century, but it has been declared off-limits due to the plague and plague-related histeria. When the history board starts to open up a few decades in the 14^th century, Kivrin leaves for the past as soon as she can.

When she gets there, though, she finds that the drop site had drifted in time more than any other drop had drifted, and suddenly she’s in one of the un-approved decades. In the meantime, back in her own time, an epidemic hits London, and no one has the time or energy to see that she is not where she should have been.

As usual, Willis weaves an interesting and intricate story.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2002
edited by Natalie Angier

Another great collection of science articles. A few noteworthy ones:

• “Violent Pride” by Roy F. Baumeister – This article blows apart the premise that violent people have low self-esteem. This piece of “common knowledge” had not really been rigorously tested, and when a group does test it, they find that the agressive group actually has high self esteem.
• “Welcome to Cancerland” by Barbara Ehrenreich – Ehrenreich examines the pink world of breast cancer after she is diagnosed with it
• “As Good As Dead” by Gary Greenberg – This piece examines the fuzzy line between life and death and the ethics involved in declaring someone dead enough to harvest their organs.
• “Why McDonald’s Fries Taste So Good” by Eric Schlosser – Interesting article on how flavorings are made and used. It’s surprising how flavorings are really the heart of the food industry, not the foods themselves.
• “Shock and Disbelief” by Daniel Smith – This piece is about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and how it has changed in the last 20 years. It also touches on the controversy and highlighted how today’s ECT is far removed from the horrors that most people have in their minds.

There was also one annoying piece, “Sound and Fury” by Garret Keizer, and I skipped at least one other piece after reading the first few pages. However, all-in-all, this was a better collection than the others I’ve read.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
by J. K. Rowling

It’s Harry Potter’s fourth year at Hogwarts, and by far his most dangerous so far. As he is forced to compete in the triwizard tournament, a dangerous tournament between the top three wizard schools in Europe, he faces challenges that test his skills as a wizard beyond what he was ever prepared for.

This is the best Harry Potter book so far in the series, and the darkest. I can hardly wait to read the next one to see where things go next.

Man With Farm Seeks Woman With Tractor: The Best and Worst Personal Ads of All Time
by Laura Schaefer

This is a collection of personal ads through history. Unfortunately, the best one was the one used for the title. All of the rest paled by comparison. It also seemed that Schaefer picked many ads from the same paper on the same day or week, leading me to believe that her research was a bit lacking. This collection is not worth the time or money.

Tags: reviews

Thanksgiving

As is becoming our Thanksgiving Day tradition, Andrew and I spent the day down at the Smithsonian. We started at the National Air and Space Museum, with hopes of seeing Magnificent Desolation, the moon-IMAX movie; however, we were too late for the first showing, so we moved on.

From there, we stopped at the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden, which neither of us had walked through before.
   

On the way to our next stop, we took a long-cut by the carousel so I could snap a few pictures.
   

Next we went to the Natural History Museum to check out the Columbian Gold exhibit.
   

Then we topped off the day at the World War II Memorial
   

When we got home, Andrew cooked up a Thanksgiving feast for us, and we had a quiet evening at home. All-in-all, a great day.

All of my pictures for the day are in my Flickr photo album.

Tags: museums, thanksgiving

Talk at the UMD Observatory

By the way, I’ll be giving the Public Open House talk at the University of Maryland’s Observatory on Sunday at 8PM. The title is “Dark Energy: A Modern Science Mystery”, and is geared toward a non-technical audience. The talk is about how scientists came to think that much of the Universe is composed of dark energy.

If you’re in the College Park area, stop by.

[Cross-posted at Galaxy Girl]

Tags: work

This is what I get for leaving the closet door open

A closer look inside the closet:

Tags: dreams