Quick update concerning SiParCS: At the FRACTAL Spring 2009 conference I ran into two engineers/scientists who work at NCAR: Ben Mayer and Nathan Hearn. It turns out that they are two members of the group Kate Ericson and I will be working with (under John Dennis) for the SiParCS 2009 internship this summer. We chatted at lunch for about 30 minutes about some interesting topics. It was nice to meet a few of the people I will probably be interacting with for at least two months this summer. It was also interesting that I ran into them at the conference: small world!
I just noticed that Jaunty changed the way that it notifies the user about updates. Rather than a notification in the systray, it displays the update-manager window automatically. To revert to the systray notification, you need to change a Gnome settings value using either gconftool on the command line or gconf-editor. Change the value /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch to false using one of these tools:
gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false
No run today. I woke up and discovered we had a few inches of snow and it was still coming down. It’s starting to melt now, but it was enough to kill my motivation to run this morning…
Same workout this morning as I did on Monday. Recovering much faster after running, so either I’m not pushing myself hard enough or my lungs are getting more used to being used. Hopefully it’s the latter…
Rode down to Loveland and back up through Masonville yesterday:
The ride took about 2 hours. It was quite windy, and heading south/west was a lot of work, north/east directions were quite nice though.
I decided to attempt Rist today after getting some code written. I left a bit later than I would have liked (~4:45), but the sun is setting around 7:15 now so I figured I would have enough time. I have been using MapMyRide for about a year, and here is the route I took:
I’m definitely not ready for a full ride up rist, but I did pretty well considering this was my first attempt this season. My legs started cramping towards the place where I turned around. I felt like I was out of energy (only my legs though, my lungs were great) and didn’t want to push myself past what I was comfortable with, so I decided to turn around. The descent was cold, but the temperature differential between start and end was enormous, and I warmed up quick. My legs were cramping on and off the whole way home.
Overall though, I’m pleased with how I did. I think I will finally hit the top after a few more attempts.
Beautiful morning for a run. We’re looking at near record breaking highs this week, and I can believe it after the warm morning air. It was interesting, as I was running, the air would be chilly at times, then the breeze would come and blow in warm air from somewhere. I’m guessing the sun was warming the upper level air and the wind would blow this warmer air down closer to the ground. Anyway, I’m planning on doing this same workout (listed next) on Wednesday and Friday as well as this morning:
- ~2 mile run
- 500 crunches/sit-ups of various types
- 25 push-ups
Tuesday and Thursday I’m going to either ride my trainer or hit the roads (I’m guessing the latter as it’s going to be so nice).
Enjoy the week!
This mornings workout:
- ~2 mile run
- 500 crunches/sit-ups of various types
- 20 push-ups
Since I started last week, I can already tell I’ve gotten stronger. The 2 mile run doesn’t kill me anymore and I can do the crunches/push-ups without terrible pain/agony. Exciting!
Last week Rachael and I started working out every morning. Along with the workouts came our push to start eating/cooking healthier. Anyone who thinks eating healthy implies bland, boring, tasteless food better think again. Some of the dishes we’ve cooked the last few nights have been some of the best we’ve ever cooked.
Here is a taste of some of the recipies we’ve based our meals/snacks on lately:
- Southwestern pasta salad
- Sweet potato crisps
- Chicken burritos
- Mexican Manicotti
- Cilantro lime salsa
- Chicken veggie southwestern wraps
- Fruit smoothies
We’ve also got some great ideas for the coming days/weeks.
I hope to develop a recipe database soon. This will allow each of the above listed items to be described in detail, including name, ingredients, preparation details, comments for making it next time, etc. All this will be easily searchable for easy recall later. I can then link to the recipe the night it gets made and comment on it in a blog post. Now I just need to find the time to write the code for such an application…
I received word around noon today that I was accepted to the SiParCS 2009 summer internship program at NCAR in Boulder, CO for this summer. The intenship runs for 10 weeks (from June 1st to August 7th). I will be working on a project with John Dennis (a CU Boulder alumni) that is related to my thesis work with irregular computations. More details as I learn more and also updates as the project progresses.
