On the employment front, I'm still waiting to hear if the job offer is a go. It's a new position that's being created, so it's taking longer for approval. We'll see...

In the middle of all this, I'm also thinking about life post-student and apart from the University. Pretty weird for someone who has listed "student' as her profession for soooo, soooo long.

A tiny part of that is moving my blog from the U to another host. I've set up shop over at blogger.com under the title of Uncertainty Analysis. Some of the stuff I'm posting is old stuff (primarily travel pix), but I'll be posting new stuff over there from now on.

Thanks to everyone for all of your comments here and, of course, for the amazing support you've given me. Catch you on the flip side...

In the meantime, I thought I'd post a few pictures of goings-on in our back yard this summer.

This a beautiful bloom on our gardenia plant. We received it two years ago as part of a wedding gift. It's been a trooper to survive the Minnesota winters -- we bring it inside, but it isn't exactly tropical in our house in January. It had buds on it fairly early this summer, but they just sat there closed for the longest time.

Then, during the hottest, most humid, most miserable stretch of weather when everything (and everyone) was withering, the gardenia was in its element and unfurled its blooms to celebrate.

Among the regular back yard visitors this year was a newcomer. A baby bunny found a home among the flowers and plants. It has been fun to watch the little fellow grow up.

We didn't have a lot of free time to spend in the yard this summer, but there was one area that we gave attention to. There was an overgrown patch in the back along the alley, between our garage and the neighbor's. It was something we saw every time we left the garage and when we came home again. This was the year to do something about it.

We dedicated a weekend to weeding, soil preparation, and planting, then another weekend to put in a border. I decided to go with annuals, since if we didn't like it, we could start over again next year.

I think it turned out very well!

Apparently, others did, too.

Our neighborhood council encourages alley beautification projects in the form of an annual alley garden award. It isn't a real competition, just recognition for a nicely planted and well-maintained plot of alley real estate.

A few weeks after planting, we were notified that we won an Alley Garden Award. And a few weeks after that, we found a little blue award flag planted among our flowers. Even though it's a little thing, it was very nice to receive an award. And in our 'rookie' year, no less!

I had two serendipitous moments today, both relating to my thesis.

First, I'd been feeling stuck for the past couple of days. I am working on a way to translate this new model approach I've designed into a computational model. This is the last part of the last revision of my thesis, and the phrase "always darkest before the dawn" comes to mind. I've got the logical steps of the model down and now I need to figure out how to represent that in the analytical program I'm using. It's not really a huge deal, since I'm using a very simple add-in to Excel -- not like I'm writing my own code or anything -- but it's proving to have its own challenges.

I'm working on trying to attribute human cases of Salmonella illness among the various food commodities to identify where most of the Salmonella is coming from. Now, there is a lot we don't know about where Salmonella is and how it works its way through the food production systems. It's a bit like a black hole, really. What I'm trying to do is identify ways we can nibble away at the edges of this black hole now, with the data we have, and how we could get even further with more information and better data.

Cutting to the chase, I had come to a point yesterday when I realized I needed to account for all the different combinations of foods the cases had been exposed to just prior to getting ill. I was pretty sure I new how to puzzle this out using simple probability rules, but I went to my book to make sure.

I learned that what I wanted to know was the number of subsets that exist for the nine food categories in my model. It turns out there is a shortcut to calculating this: it is simply 2^n (2 to the nth power). So I learned I would be working with 2^9 = 512 possible combinations. As I continued reading, I also rediscovered how all of these combination ideas fit into Pascal's triangle. I say "rediscovered" because I had learned about Pascal's triangle in math class, but I don't think I really appreciated its beauty until now.

But I haven't even come to the real serendipity yet. There were also a couple of lines in the combinations section that I skimmed over and then re-read, concentrating on their meaning: "A subset may be chosen by deciding for each of the n elements whether that element should belong to the subset, or not. There are n successive choices to be made, with two possible choices at each stage." Those two sentences have given me an idea for a whole new way of setting up this analytical structure -- one that may save me the step of having to create all 512 possible combinations.

The funny thing is that when Ben and I were carpooling into work this morning, and I was complaining about being at a complete mental logjam, Ben said that I would come up with a great idea today to get me unstuck.

Maybe it's all due to birthday karma. Which brings me to serendipitous moment number two.

I don't make a habit of reading my horoscope. But today I decided to see what my birthday horoscope said. Here it is from The Washington Post. (I didn't know the Washington Post had horoscopes, but they do, filed under "Arts & Living".)

Yes, of course, horoscopes are all about writing something vague that appears to be personal, like the horoscope is directly speaking to you. But even though I'm not a believer, reading it today did give me a nice boost. I especially like that first bit about moving toward a goal for while and starting to see progress. Keep the good mojo working, baby!

Still here and writing like crazy trying to finish the dissertation. I've discovered that finishing up a thesis is very deceptive. You start with a finishing marker -- you can see that marker and you know where to go. Or at least you think you do. As you make your way to that marker, what looked like a straight path is actually a very winding one. It's like being one peak over from the last peak. You've only a valley and one last climb to do, but you didn't notice all of those darn switchbacks!

I've been working closely with my advisor on tying up some loose ends in this Salmonella attribution model I'm creating. I've finished the final refinements to the logical construct, now I'm working on the final tweaks to the analytical construct.

My goal was to be graduated this summer. But certain problems arose in some of those 'loose ends' that didn't tie up how I thought they would. My new goal is to finish all of my responsibilities -- a complete draft of the thesis -- by the end of summer and send it off to my committee. I'm sure there will be revision work to do before I can defend, but I feel like I really have that final marker is sight!

The whole consolidation thing had been looming over me for the past couple of weeks, but I kept putting it off. Yesterday, I decided it was finally time to get it done, since I only had until Friday to get it in under the deadline. I have some old loans through Sallie Mae, so I needed to go to the National Student Loan Data System web site to get the necessary information to plug into the consolidation form. To retrieve the information, they ask for your information and your PIN. But when I entered my PIN, I kept getting an error. I even went to the Federal Student Aid PIN site and requested a PIN look-up.

I got a little worried when they confirmed that the PIN I was using was the one they had on file. Why won't it work? Is the site broken or overloaded? What if I couldn't fix it before Friday? And then, of course, I couldn't help but feel immense guilt at not having done this months ago...

But then the extraordinary procrastinator's luck I've had most of my life kicked in. I called the student aid 800 number and got right through to someone after pressing "2" for PIN help. I explained my problem.

She asked "and you got the error message after putting in your 4 digit PIN?"

I replied, "No, I got the error message after I put in my 6 letter PIN."

Apparently, the PIN I'd been using for years -- the PIN I was issued by the FSA -- is no longer accepted on the NSLDS web site... they only accept PINs that have four numbers. Fortunately, that was easy enough to fix. You can change your PIN right on the web and can even set it to a number of your choosing. It was odd -- and frustrating -- that there wasn't a note about the incompatibility on the log-in page.

But now I'm all consolidated and happy and ready to procrastinate the next big thing...]]> 2006-07-21T15:44:57Z 2006-06-27T01:33:29Z tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2006:/rigd0003/uncertainty//1448.47998 2006-06-27T01:33:29Z

Our beloved companion, Pippin, died early this morning. He'd been battling splenic cancer since the beginning of the year. Even in illness he was gregarious and frolicsome, so his quick decline late last night took us by surprise. I'm glad M was with him in his last moments.

I took this picture just yesterday -- him sunning himself on the dining room table. This is just one of so many treasured memories I have of him.

We'll miss you, Pip.

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Every once in a while, I want to insert a special character or accented letter. Like when I'm writing an e-mail to my friend Renée, or blogging about French towns called Jumièges, or practicing my Español. I usually have to find some special menu or look up ASCII character code to put in the correct character I need. ¡Cómo frustra! (How frustrating!)

But today I stumbled upon a piece of freeware called MoreKeys that makes this simple. MoreKeys, by Braser Soft, is a very simple program for inserting characters into text by selecting the character from a small hovering window. You can easily switch between several language sets and a simple symbol set.

There are other programs that do something similar, like the Open Source Quick Key, but I like MoreKeys' simplicity. (I actually discovered MoreKeys under a list of related programs on the Quick Key site.)

There was one thing about the program I found unintuitive, though. The top row of symbols (- o ? *) are actually menu keys (minimize, options, help, and choose language, respectively).

And there's something a bit odd about the web site. If you go to the home page from the MoreKeys page, you can't get back to the MoreKeys page. It isn't listed under their programs or on the site map. Makes me wonder if they've abandoned the program (no longer supporting it) and the MoreKeys page lives on as a kind of disembodied entity. So I guess it's a case of freeloader beware!

Rouen

Along Rouen's Rue du Gros-Horloge. This is a lovely pedestrian street through the old part of this capital of Upper Normandy. Alas, the gros horloge (large clock) was being repaired and we didn't see it.

Inside the Cathédrale Notre-Dame.

The Cathédrale's central lantern tower is 495 ft. tall and is the tallest spire in France. This iron spire replaced one of wood and gilded with lead in 1876.

Rouen is the place where Joan of Arc was executed in 1431. This cross has been erected to mark the spot where she was burned at the stake.

One of the most unique places we visited was a medieval plague cemetery in a courtyard, Âitre St-Maclou, where you can still see the original symbols of death carved in the timbers of the buildings surrounding the courtyard.

One of the carvings close up.

Abbaye de Jumièges

Porch and towers of the Jumièges abbey cathedral ruins. An abbey, of one sort or another, has been on this land by the Seine since at least the 7th century. The structures here now are the ruins of a Benedictine abbey built in the 10th century and consecrated in 1067 in the presence of William the Conqueror.

Remains of the cathedral's trancept.

The St-Pierre church sits next to the cathedral on the Abbey grounds.

Honfleur

You can tell that Honfleur is a boating town. It's right on the Atlantic coast across the mouth of the Seine from La Havre. At the back of the Vieux Bassin you can see the 16th century house where the king's lieutenant, the governor of Honfleur, once lived.

This is the Église St-Catherine, built by local shipwrights in Honfleur to celebrate the end of the Hundred Years War. All the stone masons had not returned yet from their war service, so this is one of the rare churches that was built of wood. It has a very unique Scandinavian feel to it.

As we sat beside the water and enjoyed a leisurely dinner, we remarked on the beautiful evening in Honfleur with the sun setting behind us, illuminating the buildings at the edge of Vieux Bassin. Another grand day in France drew to a close...

In addition to Hammond B-3 organ music, I 've found that German operettas like The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus make for good writing music. Nice tempo, jovial melody, and in a foreign language that is neither too familiar nor unfamiliar to be distracting.

A while back I was involved in the student health clinic's advisory committee. One of the directors asked if I would participate in a video the clinic was producing to show at orientation and highlight all of the services the clinic provides. They wanted to include some interviews with current students. I'd really come to appreciate the clinic's dedication to students and student involvement, so I happily said "yes" and showed up for the interview and just winged it.

Of course, I saw the video right after it was produced. It looked quite good. But I had one of those "that's what I look like?!" reactions to my portion of it. I was nervous during the interview and I tried to give thoughtful answers. What that came out looking like was that I was half asleep and a bit slow. Like I said, that was all a while ago, maybe two years, so I'd forgotten about it. Well, the video is still in rotation and "half asleep and a bit slow" looks even worse on a gigantic theatre screen.

Oh well, no Hollywood career for me...

This map shows an overview of our trip. The scientific conference I was attending was in St. Malo on the Atlantic coast in the Brittany region of Northwest France. We were flying in a week early to travel before heading to the conference. But what to see during that week? I'd never been to France before and our choices seemed limitless. We finally decided that since we were headed to Brittany and didn't know if we'd ever get a chance to see the region again, we wouldn't spend any time in Paris but instead head straight out and explore Normandy and the eastern part of Brittany.

We landed in Paris around noon on May 3, rented a car, and set out for Les Andelys, a small town along the Seine near Normady's eastern border. On a bluff overlooking the Seine and the town are the ruins of a fortress, Château-Gaillard, built by King Richard the Lionheart in 1196 to protect his Norman lands.

The château is in the foreground with the Seine behind and Les Andelys off to the right. Since the fortress was not on the highest point (the hill where we took the picture is higher), there were massive moats and walls built around it to protect it from attack from above. In the far background you can see white cliffs along the river banks -- the same type of rock formation as in the south of England.

Not much is left of the massive center donjon (keep).

The main purpose of the fortress was to control passage along the Seine and bar the King of France's way to the city of Rouen further downstream. Here's a nice look down to the river from the fortress.

A view from the other side of the fortress looks across to the rolling fields above the town. One of the things that struck me as we clambered around the château is how freely you can clamber around historic sites in France. If this were in the States, everything would be roped off and you'd have to stay on a narrow, restricted path -- no climbing, no touching. All the better to preserve things for the next generation, I suppose. But I must admit I really enjoyed the freedom to explore.

We worked up a real appetite and headed back into town for our first dinner in France -- a lovely and leisurely dinner. As we were strolling along, we happened to spy this pet grooming store:

Yes, that's Scooby-Doo. I love how the name is spelled in phonetic French: Scoubidou!

I just took it in for resuscitation. If it needs to go to HP for special surgery, that could take from one to three weeks. Fortunately, I have a mirror backup of the hard drive that I made on Thursday, so only Friday's work is lost. I hope my Livestrong didn't decide to take its own life like the heroic laptop I read about in the Onion recently.

Regardless, I won't let this little set-back slow me down. I certainly have access to several computers, at home and on campus. I probably won't be typing away in the coffee house any time soon, but I'll make do. I'll keep you posted.]]> 2006-06-22T18:18:23Z 2006-05-23T17:07:25Z tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2006:/rigd0003/uncertainty//1448.46536 2006-05-23T17:07:25Z

I'll be posting some travel pictures of Normandy and Brittany in a few days.]]> 2006-06-14T21:57:46Z 2006-04-21T21:26:06Z tag:blog.lib.umn.edu,2006:/rigd0003/uncertainty//1448.43944 2006-04-21T21:26:06Z

Yes, it looks like Derrek Lee will be in a cast and out of the Cubs lineup for up to two months. I didn't see the play that caused the injury on Wednesday night. I was in the kitchen at the time, packing my lunch for the next day. But I could overhear the announcers talking excitedly and bent an ear in the direction of the television. Then I called downstairs, "Are they saying Lee is injured?", following it up with an exasperated groan.

Oh well, the show must go on...

If there's a personal up-side to this, it is that I discovered a great, funny, and smart new podcast when seeking information (and consolation) about the injury. The Cubscast is a free podcast featuring Andrew Figgins, Zach Baliva, and Matt Sheppo -- a.k.a. Lou, Sneetch, and Sheps.

Today's episode (#139) features a lot of talk about the implications of Lee's injury and reflections on the bad karma of April 19th and 20th in history. Trying to lighten the mood, the topic later switched to the great job Ryan Dempster is doing as a closer for the Cubs: he has 23 consecutive saves and has yet to give up a run in 31 and one-third innings. To which one of them quipped, "it will only be a week before Ryan Dempster is involved in some horrific lawnmower accident."

But seriously, one of the things I liked about this Cubscast is that it wasn't all doom and gloom or a bunch of whining, which is a problem I have with some of the Cubs fan blogs. What can I say? I'm an optimist at heart. Go Cubbies!

BTW, looks like a call-up from AAA Iowa Cubs, Michael Restovich, will be replacing Lee on the Cubs roster.

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