Toasty friends

It was fun to see Elwin and Mandy again at Legal's yesterday. Since Elwin was visiting from LA, it was a real trip to hang out and talk about life outside MIT. Mandy has returned from India (and doing artistic things). Also met Frank, who is the head of UCLA's alumni group. Missed Zahra and LiWei, but maybe next time!

Engelbart & Clinton

This week, our group met with Doug Engelbart, the inventor of the mouse. He gave a talk about his new vision. It was terrific to meet a living legend. It was great to spend time listening to him talk about where HCI should go and how representing knowledge in different ways would be useful to mankind. He was very positive, and just enthusiastic. The best part about meeting great people is how nice they usually are, and how happy they are about the work that they do. Usually they are very generous with compliments and his thoughts on what was interesting about the work he saw. For example, Doug also invented a chording keyboard, and he brought it out and talked about how people were able to use the keyboard effectively/efficiently even more with chording and how amazed he was by that. His enthusiasm for this chording feature was clear.
Reminds me of the time I met Douglas Dayton, from IDEO (and before that Hovey-Kelley), who drew the CAD drawings of the mouse for commercialization. Always cool to meet people who worked on a seminal project, and listen to their stories.
I'm rambling now, cause its 5:30am, but I recently caught Bill Clinton on TV talking to the Potomac school. It was great to hear such an articulate leader who had thought about the pros and cons of world situations. Again, his strong convictions on what America should do in Iraq and other places was clear, and he showed his understanding was more than surface level. He identified that Democracy is not just majority rule, but an idea based on respecting the greater good and minority viewpoints. The best thing I learned was that different ways of seeing things (e.g. multiple identities/sympathies) are good. He applied this to religion: we can have many different religions and celebrate their differences, but also having alternate identities than just a religious identity helps people understand their fellow human beings and celebrate mankind. By understanding differences in different ways, we can understand that there is no ONE correct or dominant way of doing things. As long as we respect each other and seek the greater good, humanity will always triumph.

It is impressive the amount of background knowledge this man had in his impromptu speech. Here are some interesting quotes that came from the Fairfax Times news article:

"...Study something they love, and to challenge themselves, make it difficult ... spend some time getting to know people different than you."

"Globalization is inadequate. Our world is too small, we all need each other, and divorce is not an option. You cannot escape each other."

"Everybody needs an opportunity to participate. People need to feel responsible for the success of an endeavor, a sense of belonging."

---

Other than that, I had a terrific time seeing my friends who I have neglected in a while. Lily and Ben, Rich and Virginia showed up for dim sum, along with Jim Barabas, Betsy, MayLin, Lily and Jordan, and new folks Jo and Nick. It was a terrific time, and I learned about what was going on with everyone's lives it was good to appreciate how hard everyone works and enjoys their jobs.

Congratulations to Lily & Ben for getting married! They are very happy and i'm sure it will be a motivating factor for Lily to finish her thesis so she can go on a honeymoon!

We went shopping at Costco today, too, and bought finals breakfast food. It will be an exhausting week but I'm sure we'll have a lot of good times as well.

Flowers everywhere

Everywhere around campus, there are azaleas blooming. Pleasant breezes and nice weather were the norm until today. Today it is rainy and full of thunderstorms. I'm going to go out in it, to have dinner at Penang with Aileen.

Post Sponsor week catch-up

Its been a looong week. After flying the red-eye back from San Jose, it was time for sponsor week. I think I must have slept a total of 8 hours the whole week. I took advantage of this weekend to catchup and see my friend Sarah (and my cousin Joyce) who was visiting from Miami. Sarah has a baby, Violette, who is ultra cute and quiet. It was nice to get our mani-pedis in Harvard, and just catch up. So much has happened since we were last together about 3 years ago. Its nice to know that things are going well. When you're in school it doesn't seem like time is moving. Its like a vacuum, or as TadT says, its a bubble that reflects in on itself. Still, it seems like life is good. Otherwise, things in school are coming to an end of a semester. Students are getting their plans together for summer, and all the end of year events are rolling by. It will be a busy end of semester, as many of the seniors on my hall are moving on to bigger and better things. We'll be doing some end-o-year events and as usual, it will be a busy but fun time.

Back from California

Me, Tom, Julie and Duff are having desserts at Mel's diner in SF here. I am back from a great time in california, after hopping off the red-eye to partake in Sponsor week at the Lab. I started off at CHI (flickr posts coming soon), then LA and SF. It was very nice to see a lot of ML alumni, get a sense of what they were working on, and give me perspective on what life could be like after MIT. The work that they're doing now out west seems satisfying and deeply meaningful. I was amazed at the level of detail, quality, and robustness of the engineering work being done at Oblong and BlackDust. Lots of startups. Tom's got Whooptones and some secret ones that will be announced soon...*hush*. These guys have visions on on the future of technology, and you can buy/play/live with it. More on this in a later post, after I get the pix up. I also had a terrific time meeting with old MIT friends, and soaking up the rays on a hike at Penitencia Creek Park with c/o 97'ers Julie and Duff-- its been too long. Here's a shout-out to the i-dogs "Arrouuuu!"

A recap of good things Summer 04

We have have all the good things here. I found my Summer Pix from 2004, and am seriously looking forward to this year's round of BBQs, outings, and Fairs.




We also have the summer birthdays and excursions from earlier that year. Jim frosted all those ladybug cakes! I baked popovers, cause he likes em so. In retrospect, it was a busy summer where people were moving around a lot. There were visits to and from family (UK, NY, and Long Island), Roo's Thermal Spray lab at SUNY, and then there was trips to the beach. We saw the HelloMoto boat and met the captain and enjoyed fireworks on the 4th over the Charles. We baked a lot, and looked out the windows onto the MIT dome from our apartment in central square.

Journey to Cinque Terre

Just looking at the pictures takes my breath away. I've finally uploaded pix of our Journey to Cinque Terre last spring break. It was one of the most captivating hikes I've ever been on, and I would definitely like to return. We had a terrific meal overlooking the gorgeous views, and met many kind people. Next time, we'll definitely go climb the castle and eat more frutti di bosc gelati!

ML Model Hack

Little green men have stormed the Media Lab Model . Looks like someone's research is causing quite a stir. Hold on to your thumbtacks and resistors, they might be commandeered by the troops.

Rubber ducky, you're the one!

A fun and wacky valentines day on Stickmen where we had some serenading, hearts, and tasty goodness. The last video is of the hall at the housemaster's studybreak. Its been a giggle of a term. The stickmen also rocked the house at the recent Cookie bakeoff. We submitted 5 entries (including a GRT entry), and they would have all won if we had enough prizes for them. Jim's GRT entry didn't get to be voted on, but I thought it was the best one (and I'm not biased at all!). Pix of the Cookie Bakeoff TBA. Congratulations to the power bakers Sarah and Kathy for their award-winning entries of Spagetti Cookies and the Great Dome Hack. We had the most innovative hall, with the spirit of Colin Cross revived in cookie form by Chris's "Colin Cookies"-- a hall secret recipe, and also the spirit of 3D creation from Kelly, which had people wondering how she made it!

Key West pics finally uploaded

I finally put up the pix from 2 summers ago of our drive to the Keys:Key west adventure. There were some very beautiful parts, like the sunsets, the super rainy downpour, and the waterspouts along the Seven Mile Bridge. We visited that Key Lime Pie factory, and ate some goodies, saw some "funny people" at the "ladies night" on the main drag, and enjoyed getting our tans. The drive was long, but it was kind of fun-- only 4 hours from Miami with cruise control. One nice part was hanging out with Jim and my parents, and enjoying the lighthouse views at the southernmost tip of the US. We went all the way to Mile 0 of I-95, the beginning of that beast of a road that makes its way all the way up to Boston! I found that my street is in the center of town, and we even saw a pirate store! Arrgh!

See Duff talk at Google!

My friend, physicist/scientist/inventor/programmer, Mike Duff, will be giving a talk at google today. Hope those of you in Mountain view can go. Sounsd like he'll be talking about internet security at SRI, one of the coolest innovation companies around.

Congratulations Robbin!

A big kudos to my friend and colleague, Robbin Chapman, for her recent appointment to diversity recruiting in the MIT School of Architecture Planning. She's so positive and energetic, I think that she will make a big impact in the admissions process for our department.

One See in Four Stages, by Mat Laibowitz

Hey folks, this looks like a cool installation by Mat Laibowitz at EXIT ART. If you are in NYC, this might be a visual experience that changes the way you think about light, space, and time.

Marty Johns sent me Bubbles

Bubbles
Watch it become.
Thanks Marty! That's very nice of you. Makes me want to go to the circus.

Happy Chinese New year, happy valentine's day!

This is going to be an awesome year! Its going to be terrific, and I'll get to see my friends a lot more this year! I celebrated in style, with dim sum and dinner, with some good friends and my awesome hall. So this year, I know it will be easier to see my friends than in previous years. :) I might have good opportunity to fly to your neighborhoods, friends who are afar (SF, Dallas, Miami, NYC)!
I'll try to blog more this year, that way you can have constant updates! For those of you on RSS readers, you'll know the scoop from the source.
This is from my cousins in China:


As the weather would have it, I was snowed in on Valentines Day and ended up not flying to my conference in Baton Rouge. So I spent the day *working* next to my handsome man, and also hung out with my favorite students! It seems those close to me will also be close to me next year. Yay yay yay!

Congratulations Ian, my Guy101.

Congratulations to Ian for winning a BAFTA. You know you rock. That was the best winner's walk I've seen. Nice bling too! xxoxoxo! Watch him snag the prize!
Here's 2 my favorite Guy 101! *kiss* *kiss* snootchy bootches. *bye cutie*

Congratulations to Jonah

Lucky for me, I know lots of winners! Congrats to Jonah on winning for his entry Alerting Infrastructure, the OpenCall for Labcyberscpaces!

Happy Birthday Virginia!

We went to Amelia's Kitchen, in cozy Teal Square. I had pesto, everyone else had yummy pasta! yum yum! happy birthday Virginia, what a year!! hope that next year is even better!

Happy Turkey Day,Stickmen!

Kudos to my hall for making mondo food for Sunday's Thanksgiving feast. Click here of pictures of kevin Making Turducken. It was way cool, and we are way full.

Yummy!

Congratulations and good work to the students who entered the East campus Apple Bakeoff this year. There were many creative and colorful dishes, and some interesting combinations (e.g. thugfest brew). These shots of the food are absolutely stunning. You should have tasted them!

Congrats to Shwang and Reyna!

Just got email today from Shwang and Reyna that they're back from their Hawaiian honeymoon adventure. Their adventures were spectacular, from snorkeling to helicoptering around the island, and soaking up tons of fun and sun. They even got to experience a mild earthquake! We're glad you guys shared your pictures, looks like an amazing time!

nice weekend, cake, ice cream and more!

This was a nice long weekend. We went Apple Picking, got a lot of apples. Had some bday cake and lots of ice cream! Talked to Ben and my folks. It was good weather, and have a lot more energy than last week. Thanks for all the well wishes everyone! My hall is the bomb,yo, I got a rainbow color cake with all the miami pastel colors (thanks Sarah!). Makes me feel at home, surrounded by some pretty flowers! Its been a nice day, week, year! To many more!

Parents wanted a new USB cable  and phone case

Haymarket shopping experience

Here you see Maya buying groceries, photo taken by Peter.
For class, we recently did a study of shopping as it has become more mechanized. We went to the olde-fashioned Haymarket and compared the higher-tech experience to Shopping at Shaws. It was somewhat of a surprise how positive the shopping experience at Haymarket was, compared to shopping at Shaws. At Haymarket, the vendors were very friendly, while at Shaws, they were merely functional. It is interesting that the separation of job functions, and optimization of efficiency in the shopping process has also resulted in shopping being more task oriented in finding and aggregating, vs. negotiation and persuasion.
Check out my songs on the haymarket and shaws experience, made from sampled sounds by Sara and Peter.

Feldmeier on Jesus the Ride

IMG_2740.JPG, originally uploaded by bavetta.

Its very rare that I see pictures like this. Apparently one of the best photos from EC Rush this year.

Jonah's interview

Jonah was recently Interviewed by a media art site.

ANGEBOT on Sale

Image(057).jpg
Originally uploaded by a7emprl.

According to JimB, my robot is on sale. Just think, for 4.90, you can get 15 minutes with ANGEBOT. Apparently, its got 8 kabinens. It might be your only chance to experience what its like to be in her awesome company. L0LZ!

Anj at Penn State DIS2006

DSC05634.jpg
Originally uploaded by Indignant Chiuhuahua.

This is a picture taken by Wendy, of me at lunch with people at DIS2006. You can't tell, but outside, it is raining cats and dogs. Luckily the Vietnamese Pho was very warm and filling.

chinatown run

Today we went to Chinatown and had dim sum. It was rainy, but the dimsum was good. As always, I was able to get my coconut jello fix, and jim got his cha siu bao fix. Our hall residents came along, and it was nice to see V & R, Rebs, and Juana and Rob again. Next time we go though, I'll have to organize it later-- people have trouble waking up before noon. :) Although, the good stuff is usually gone and not as fresh later in the day. Tomorrow is a holiday, and hopefully we'll have a good day for the ec bbq.

1W rush pics

I finally got 1W rush pix up. We had a terrific rush, with a carnival theme organized by the hall chairs, Ryan and Kelly. They did a superb job, and it was fun. We got our palms read, fortunes told, and horoscopes dispensed. We played Tic Tac Toe, Ring Toss, Yoshi Mini Golf, Cork Gun gallery, and even had a working Skeeball machine with Stickmen scoring. Jim had the high score (32.5 (4 full stickmen, and 1/2 point)). The food was entirely awesome too, we had corndogs, deep fried oreos, and frozen chocolate-nut covered bananas. yum! You can hear your mortality when you bite a deep fried oreo, kinda tastes like a chocomuffin. We also slurped down our hall drinks: (virgin daquiris) and bagadodots.
In the days leading up to rush, we had Kevin's bday and also Chris finished his awesome Seurat painting. Go Stickmen Rush! As you can see, everyone helped out, and all in all, it was a success. Even many of the other floors came down to see what the fuss was about. Best of all, we got our hall t-shirts. Yay! This hall's got it together.

Catch Kristin Hall on Thursday at the Muddy

Thursday, August 31
The Muddy Charles Pub, First Floor Of Walker Memorial (Building 50), MIT, 142 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 8:00 - 10:00 PM and beyond...
Come on down! Have a drink and listen to some great tunes as you look out over the Charles River.
[The Muddy Charles is on the first floor of Walker Memorial, which is next to the tennis courts at the corner of Ames Street and Memorial Drive. The Pub is just to your right as you enter the front doors facing the river. There is on-street parking on Ames Street & in Kendall Square and it is just about a 5-minute walk from the Kendall Square T station

You can also catch her this Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday, August 29
Main Street's Market & Cafe, 42 Main Street, Concord Center, MA. No cover. Enjoy a great meal, a fine wine & leave a tip for the musicians. 7:00 - 10:00 PM.
George Deliyiannis & I are making a return to the stage at Main Streets! As always, it will be a night of fun music, great food & great drink. Come for the food, stay for the blues & new tunes.

[Main Street's Market & Cafe is right on Main Street (Route 2A) in Concord Center, between Walden Street and Monument Square . There is on-street parking and the municipal parking lot is about a block away. The Concord Center Commuter Rail stop is just a few blocks away. Google Map info is here.]

Jonah's on the move again

You can catch Jonah in Montreal on the 16th at this exhibition up in Montreal. He also forwarded me this cool link on the Simpletext project. Reminds me of Golan's Flong symphony.
Jim and I recently got MRI scans for fun. Jonah sent a link of these stand up MRI places they have in NYC. Wild.

Back from Colombia!

Jim and I have just returned from our trip to Colombia to see our friends, Rich and Virginia, get married. It was a wonderful time. We got to visit the countryside and enjoyed petting ostriches and riding horses. It was also nice to meet Virginia and Rich's other friends. We'll definitely have to post our pics soon.
Now we are still unpacking, and starting to get ready for the beginning of the school semester. Rush will start soon, and our hall is making some cool treats. Rock on Stickmen!

What a month!!!

Finished DIS, came back, got good news (more to come), and had July 4th Festivities. It's been hectic recently. Between organizing the exhibit for Tangibles At Play at Emerging Technologies: SIGGRAPH 2006 and moving to our new place, its been hectic. Hopefully things can get settled and I can get back on the grid. Thank goodness I found my cellphone again! yay!

back from traveling

i just got back from traveling to Dick's Wedding in Alabama, and also from DIS conference in Penn State. It was my first time to both of those places, and the travel times were quite long. I also had connections, so it was quite tiresome. However, I'm glad I went. It was very nice to meet all these new people, and everyone has been extremely interesting and nice. I hope to keep in touch with them! I also got to reconnect with old friends, like Wendy Ju, Jofish, and Scott Klemmer. Looking forward to DIS2008 in CapeTown, South Africa!

G2P Beta: Using Google to locate MP3s

Jonah sent me G2P Beta. Now if only I could find my sense of peace. Have been in 6 different airports last weekend (BOS, CVG, BHM, ATL, PHL, and State College). I want those frequent flier miles! :)

Harvesting Peppers

I will have to post it soon, but I harvested the first pepper of the summer from my little pepper plant. It was small, but cute. I have another one growing, so we'll probably harvest that in a few days.
This weekend, I can't forget to re-pot the plants!

who's the cutest elephant walker in the rain?

whoop-whooop. shhhh! don't talk about the elephant in the room!

Congratulations to mako and mika!

Mako and Mika's Wedding

Wedding Blog on wiki.mako.cc. This weekend we went to our first Open Source Wedding. It was a lovely day for a beautiful wedding. full of music, food, and fun. We wish the happy couple a lifetime of bliss.

Jonah and K are going to Amsterdam

If any of you are in amsterdam in a few weeks, check out Jonah and Kaki's networked umbrella. You get to spend an evening with them and a workshop as well. More details here: Virtueel Platform - Scrapyard Research

Memorial Weekend in NYC

This was a terrific weekend. The weather was hot and sunny! We were finally done with our schoolwork for the term! And I went to NYC to see my friend Barbie, her boyfriend Duane, and also my brother Ben, and sister-in-law, Kelly.
Barbie, Duane, Jim and I did the double-decker bus tour of uptown, and Kelly and Ben made some awesome food. Ben and Kelly had gotten this GYNORMOUS flat panel TV and were laid back. The trusty FungWah got us there, but I think we'll lay off that for a while. It was a good time, and relaxing to get away from the stress of school. You can see the Memorial Day Weekend
pictures here.


here's to a great start to our summer!

OWL Movie!

Check out my owl movie! More to come in next few days.

Gigantic Crunchies from Montreal

In April, Jim presented his poster at CHI 2006 in beautiful Montreal. You can see us romping around Montreal. We had a terrific time, especially when we went to the IGA Louis Menard Marche and found these gynormous crunchies!
We also got a tour of XSLabs, thanks to Joey and Vincent! Whoo hoo! See Christine's blog for more pix.

Thanksgiving 05 Pix are up!

Thanksgiving at Ben and Kelly's

Jim's bday pix from my phone

Finally put pictures from Jim's birthday party last year up. Not bad for pix from an A1000.

Jim Gouldstone -- Ceramics

Jim and I took a
ceramics class this term. Check out our figurines. We learned our fab technique from Marc!!!!!!

What a weekend!

This was a pretty busy weekend. We managed to see a few movies, and I saw the Flavor of Love reunion (a disappointment but still a train wreck all the same). It was CPW, so the campus was full of frosh. I waded through them to go to my Tae Kwon Do practice, and it was a hard day of practice, but fun. I learned a new form. Practiced jumping backwheel kicks for the first time. Its a moment of weightlessness as you whip your leg backwards to the target. Cool time, though, and I am still sore. Need bananas.

I look forward to finishing fixing up the Shuttle machine and bringing it to lab to do heavy duty in our office. Its in tatters, but it works now, and I think it'll do well as a cad/demo machine. Its got a TV tuner in it, but I will have to wait to see if I can resurrect that. That's what you get when you inherit a broke machine.

I picked up the 3rd book from the Well of Echoes Series again. I was only meaning to read a few pages, and ended up plowing through 100 pages to the 3rd chapter. It was intense. I gotta be careful! Its addictive.

Yams is waiting for me to log into Animal Xing DS, and I have got to go to bestbuy to pick it up. Will do that soon!!! Can't believe the weekend went by so fast...

Just came back from Spring Break in Milan

It was a nice time to see ray. More pics soon. Ciao, i am off to sleep!

Mandarina Duck

JoonWoo loves Mandarina Duck, and I finally saw the store in Milan.

In Memoriam

Today was the memorial service for Push Singh. He had touched many lives, and we will remember him well.

Where's our research today?

It's hard to do research when it gets stolen all the time. Jacky Says "we should build some tracking into it, so next time we can find it when its being moved... Bexley!"

Welcome to the world of Willy Wonka

I Aimed a friend of mine today and this was his response. What a fantasy land we live in, actually, a mix of Oz and Wonka's chocolate factory! Thanks Jason!

UUUHHHGGG-rrrr!

You would never have guessed but Chewy is a philospher. He's got lots of deep insightful comments, check em out at UUUHHHGGG-rrrr!
I also really enjoyed the rap from Muncie indiana... I had a summer in Columbus Indiana, and I can tell you they have alleys there, just like on the coasts, yo!
Reminds me of the raps by Monzy, and then Jonah introduced me to YTCracker Zounds! Thanks Jonah! I was rotflmao!

Impossible Machines

Points to ponder for today: An archive of perpetual motion, Impossible Machines. Enjoy!

Keaton videos

If you like Keaton's Animations, you'll probably like Keaton's videos. Actually, Keaton's webiste is the bomb. Check it out at http://www.keaton-world.com/news.html. My favorite of course, is the Animation called Thing 2. Miya-hee, miya-hou, miya-haha!

Cordoba pix finally uploaded

Here we are in Cordoba!

The Media Blab, Seth's Blog

I just found out that Seth has a Media Blab. LOL! Magic, it is!

Hiz Biz Jonah!

Happy Birthday Jonah!. A shout out and all that!

Phat Lyrix from Jonah

Jonah had me download this and watch it. It's pretty funny. Keith Schofield / DJ Format reminds me of Monzy and his sick C++ lyrix.

Dec 25, 2005 Christmas Around the World at Epcot

This year, our families tried something new. We went to experience Christmas Around the World at Epcot. The best part was staying together and eating a bite in every country. We had German Bratwurst, French Pastries, Japanese Wasabi Peas, English Fish & Chips. All a good time. :) I drove for approximately 460 miles. It was fun and the best part is enjoying the holidays! So festive, so exciting!

VH1.com : Shows : Web Junk 20 : Main Page

Its cold up here in boston. I am looking forward to seeing VH1's Web Junk 20. Yay bad TV.

Congratulations James!

Congratulations to James on an awesome phD Thesis Defense. He just raised the bar just a little bit higher...

A Sparkly '06 for you

Wonderful Happy New Year, everyone! I was on South Beach, a little too close to the fireworks with my cuz Joyce, Dan, and it was fun and crowded. Thanks for all the Happy New year's wishes, everyone. Kudos to CRC and Binka. Binka sent me this link to her sparkling up the 06: smugmug - robertybinka : Sparkly '06

Happy Birthday Mako!

Nice Wikipedia entry. Thanks for all the Oden and Key Lime! That was cool!

goodbye, elwin! see you in dc.

here's a shout out to my man Elwin You had the funniest stories, and the best sense of humor! I will never forget your speech about the Gilmore girls, nor the passion of that last parting with your umbrella. you should really submit that story somewhere, it will have romantics, like me, swooning! So long, my friend, EZ E, and see you again sometime soon! At least we have your beautiful blog to stay in touch. We'll miss you and your hop-skip bounce sashay sashay Daily Dancer!

C'est la barbe!

Happy Birthday Ian!
c'est la barbe! Jim's friend Sailor Bob expresses himself beautifully. Arrrgggh!

Virginia's birthday Bash

Happy Birthday Virginia! We had a terrific time dining at Sauce, with Virginia. In attendance was her sister, Carol, who was visiting from Florida. The next day we went to celebrate with a yummy dim sum trip and also saw Harry Potter.

Dinner with Nick

Nick now has a nice car and lives in NY. Nick happened to be around Cambridge Cambridge Cambridge, so we ended up going to Gandhi to celebrate. Gandhi's in central square is one of the best places to go for an Indian dinner. I like their "complete dinner" because I always love the coconut soup, popadum, and galub jamun. Big thumbs up on the dinner. The leftovers didn't last!

Urban Oasis... soak it up

Take me to the Urban oasis! :)
Urban Oasis offers both Massage Therapy and HotTubs in a Feng Shui designed wellness center that provides the ultimate in relaxation. It seems that Boston finally has a real HotTub spa.

And Sometimes, the Island Is Marooned on You

It seems that there are nice floating islands out there, and a few folks like to keep them that way. Marvel at how surprising mother nature is, and how wild and large changes can occur through simple phenomena, such as plants dying. Floating islands in Massachusetts sure make you want to visit one, no?

Wollemia - the pinosaur

Wollemi from Michael Quinion's World Wide Words newsletter "MOST ANCIENT OF TREES Last Sunday, examples of that extraordinary
tree the Wollemi pine were auctioned in Sydney. The Wollemi is an
incredible rarity, a survivor of ancient times, the coelacanth of
the botanical world. It was found in 1994 in the Wollemi National
Park outside Sydney. Newspapers call it the "pinosaur" because it
has survived from the time of the dinosaurs 250 million years ago."
Awesome!

Happy Birthday Jim!

My most special person in the world! Happy Birthday!

Text-to-Speech

Text-to-Speech

Speech Recognition/Synthesis

Speech Recognition/Synthesis:great video of fluent speech. you can see what the tongue and palate do. kewl!

I feel great!

Thanks to all of you who made me feel special! :)
I feel great! xoxxo! I hope you all feel great too!

Yangtze River Restaurant

Because of the rainy weather, we decided to settle for a trip to the Yangtze River Restaurant in Lexington. I got up too late to go bowling, but it was nice to join everyone for lunch.
This is the second time I've visited, and I still think the food is only okay. Their lunch buffett was not good, and I am pretty happy they had a dimsum option. The had a dim-sum cart, but the dim sum was between good and mediocre. The experience was weird in that they had all the different dimsum food on ONE cart, instead of different carts. The taro cake was nice and soft, and the stuffed pepper was tasty. However, the cha-shiu-bao was a little hard on the outside (so I had to peel the skin), and the rice noodle was also hard (maybe it was too late in the day).
It was also nice because of the traditional foods (congee and fried dough), and Liwei, Mandy, Etty, and Dennis were great company. The desserts were really good, and I had my fill of coconut sticky rice, taro-coconut soup, tofu flower, tofu milk. The decor was nice, and the waitstaff spoke correct cantonese (which was NOT the case the first time I went there during the lunch crowd). I was suitably relaxed to because the waitstaff was very attentive, polite, and they seemed very professional. My preferred Dim Sum place is still Emperor's Garden in Boston Chinatown.

5K from Central T Running Maps A Google Pedometer

Walk, Jog and Run at Walk Jog and Run

There's diamonds in dem hills!

Last weekend we went scratching for Diamonds at Herkeimer. Them pickins were mighty slim, but it was a good time. I got blisters on both thumbs, but the experience was terrific. Jim, he is a natural geomancer, and he done taught me the sekrit of finding a good rock! Yee haw, bash away bash away all!

Ela and Arrin's Wedding Sept. 9, 2005 at the Habitat

Congratulations to Ela and Arrin. It was a really awesome gala, with tons of unique touches. The Habitat gardens were lovely, and it was nice to see so much greenery. Besides the beautiful setting and terrific mediterranean food, the storytelling was exquisite. Ela's hand was in all the designs, from the custom invites, the natural setting, the gorgeous dress and handmade jewelry, to the traditional Israeli repast. Arrin's friends are very funny, and told some terrific stories! Lily did a terrific job with the flowers, and it was nice to spend time talking to the people at our table: Shanti, Vivian, Lily, Ben, Audrey, Thuy, Jenny, and her new husband! Rain had us in stitches with a hilarious poem. We were also treated to an exotic belly dancing tribute by the beautiful Polina, and a song by another of Arrin's friends. I saw tons of MIT alumni in attendance, and everyone was so nice. We had a great time! Here's to the happy couple! Additional Congratulations to Rain and Byron! You guys rock for getting off your honeymoon plane just to be in attendance!

AIGA Design Conference 2005

Today TMG demoed at the AIGA design conference. Nice to meet some folks from AIGA's head office in NY (kieran w. and friends) It was different, and I got tons of paper samples. The people were friendly, and were interested in the electronics we demoed. It was interesting to see the world of the Graphic Artist. Lots of stuff about paper printing...

What does matt's email address mean?

It was a strange word, and I couldn't figure out what it really alluded to. So Thank You, matt, for responding. I will not forget a tribute to Bailacoil... enjoy! Romance of the Rose describes Bailacoil as "fair welcome", one of the guardian of the Lady's rose! here's to innocent bailacoil, and the folly of being friends.