the kite runner

i finished the book this afternoon when i got home from work. i was a little concerned a few days ago that i wasn't going to finish it. i got bored somewhere in the first half of the book, but i decided to keep reading anyways. while i don't think i will read it again, it is very well written and the story will suck you in if you let it.

in completely unrelated news, i did something i didn't think would happen anytime soon. i got the new $150k camera system in my lab up and running. i'm not collecting data yet, and won't be until after i write a paper about my other data, but i'm happy to report that i got it working...which means now i have something for my undergrad to do. soon we will be through the training phase and then i can set him lose with some data.

i was sitting in the computer lab last night finishing up a problem set that was due earlier today while instant messaging with my friend matt. i told him that i felt at home sitting in the computer science (cs) lab working though i was not exactly a cs type. he informed me i was in denial and wrote me the following code to prove it:

if(Patricia.IsInDenial)
{
Matt.Intervention(Patricia);
}
else
{
Patricia.EatDeliciousCake();
}

let's suffice it to say that i didn't get to eat delicious cake, but i can tell you how to write that code in another computing language. point matt.

its amazing what the passage of time can do. or maybe its amazing how distractions can make time pass so quickly. its been just over a month since we finished the bike ride to alaska, but it feels like longer. i don't see anyone from the trip on a regular basis, though i run into people randomly on campus every couple days. the friend i was studying with last night asked at one point if i thought i had finally started to decompress from the summer (or if i was at least slightly less angry about the whole experience). i laughed. i'm not exactly an angry or pessimistic person, so being too bent out of shape about the whole thing for any extended length of time is kind of against my nature.

i mentioned recently that i think things happen for a reason, and i think things happened this summer the way they did for a reason. lately, i'll be doing something completely random and one of those reasons will pop into my head. i think many (most?) of those insights have had something to do with being aware of the presence or absence of someone in my life. namely though they are making me more and more grateful for presence of my family and friends.