Sunday, September 30, 2007

I know I blog a lot less these days than I used to, but I wanted to know exactly how much less. So here are some quick stats:

Year	Number of posts	Average words per post
2002 (just over 3 months):	26	209
2003:	98	171
2004:	63	206
2005:	37	231
2006:	32	252
2007 (9 months):	19	236

So, it looks like I'm writing less and less every year, but up until this year my posts have at least been getting longer. I'm surprised I blogged so much back in 2003; that was the year I interned at Microsoft and had no computer at home, so I only posted once a month that summer.

Last weekend Jenny came out to visit. We went to the Michigan vs. Penn State game at the Big House:

Which we won:

The next day, I took Jenny flying. She was my first passenger since I got my license. We went by the stadium, so here's yet another picture of it, from a different perspective:

We flew to Jackson, which is a city about 40 miles west of here. They have a little airport with a restaurant, which is apparently a popular destination for local pilots. We had brunch there. Here we are on final for runway 24 at Jackson:

On the way back we passed a little to the north of Ann Arbor. In this picture, you are looking southbound, and that road running up and down is Green Road, the Huron River is in the distance, and you can see the blue Ann Arbor water tower on the right:

So that was fun. We also went to Cafe Habana, a new Cuban restaurant in town (it replaced the Shalimar on Washington). It was so new, the place still smelled like wood varnish. It wasn't meal time so we only had appetizers, but they were pretty good. Actually it's the same restaurant as the one in Royal Oak, which I've been to a couple of times. So you know it's good, because Royal Oak is far, and one doesn't go all the way there to eat mediocre food. (Then again, it is me we're talking about, and I'll drive anywhere... I have driven to Novi just for Baja Fresh.)

Jay left me his snowboard (awesome). Now I have to go snowboarding this season, I have no excuse.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

I've been pretty busy the past few weeks, working on a couple of papers. The last one was due this past Friday, so I've got a temporary breather, at least until next time. Maybe I'll have time to do some flying or rock climbing or tennis this week, and then Jenny is coming out for the weekend.

The other night I was noticing how many electronic devices in my room have LEDs that you can see when the main lights are off. I counted 14 light sources: power strip status lights (3), PC power and HDD lights, printer (2 lights), hub link lights (3), numlock light, optical mouse (it has a translucent housing so you can see the laser even when it's sitting flat on the table), smoke alarm, and alarm clock. It's like a light show in here every night.

It got cold in Ann Arbor. Right now it's 39 degrees. Granted, it's 3 in the morning, but still. Summer's over...

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

I finally got my private pilot license today! I passed the oral exam and the practical test (check ride), and now I'm a pilot! It's been more than three years since I started taking lessons (and then stopped, started, stopped, and started again), although I'm told my total number of flight hours (71) isn't too much higher than average. At times I thought "man, am I ever going to finish this? Is all the time and money I put into this so far just going to waste?" (No doubt a sentiment familiar to all grad students.) But I'm finally finished!

At least for now. There's always instrument ratings, etc... ;)