Jonathan Sprinkle's weblog

We welcomed George-Andrew McMillan Sprinkle into our family. The experience is quite amazing. I am still processing everything that happened, but most important for me to consider is what it means to love Mary Margaret with everything I have, and love George-Andrew with everything I have too. It seemed easy to do for our parents, but somehow it's different for a child. But the same.

It is amazing. I guess I might write more later, but for now I will continue to ponder this.

I find myself humming the Beatles "Rain" whenever it starts pouring down here in Tucson. Luckily, I haven't been caught out in it, though it has helped me to fall asleep at night with the tap tap tapping of the rain.

Looks like we get quite a bit of rain where we are, because being at the foothills of the mountains means that we get spillover from the convection created by the wind and the hills. Which got me to thinking the other day: are cumulus clouds created from regular clouds, and the fact that they're cumulus clouds mean that rain is coming, or do cumulus clouds float around for weeks on end, until they spot a little league game where the pitcher's just a few batters away from a no-hitter, and then start raining?

The "regular clouds become cumulus clouds" theory seems nice; a normal, safe-altitude, stable, cloud drifts over some massively hot area, and the rising heat makes the cloud start drifting upward in spades, until the moisture that was drifting along becomes unstable, and rains down a reign of terror.

To be continued, when I'm not writing two proposals at the same time, and shepherding another one through contracts, and running behind on my publications, and in desperate need of an espresso. Mmmmm, coffee.

A few months ago, NPR launched their "In Character" story series. They chose a bunch of lame characters (because, let's face it, NPR folks don't get out much, if they're all gonna be on the radio at 5:00 am; what I can't figure out, though, is how they all use the same microphone, if someone is in Cairo, and then they cut back to Washington. Amazing). Also, as is their wont, they selected a bunch of data points from the same place (what's up with Isaac Dickson Elementary School, anyway, and why do they have a monopoly on lame characters?).

So, I submitted the below writeup on Nero Wolfe. They didn't like it, I guess because I wasn't from Isaac Dickson Elementary School. Or maybe they consider talking about "fun to read" books, instead of "the world is such a horrible place" books to be worse than getting evidence on a divorce.

In a time before New Yorkers had neuroses, there was Nero Wolfe: a seventh-of-a-ton gourmand who never takes the stairs, refuses to leave his house on business, and spends a sixth of every day hybridizing orchids. Even so, Wolfe can solve mysteries moving nothing more than his genius, through his legman, Archie Goodwin's intelligence (guided by experience).

As a professor, I would be a witling if I did not see myself in Wolfe, as I stick to a location during office hours, or demand to a student: "Report!" We each refuse to do tasks if our self-esteem will not allow it (Wolfe and divorce cases go together like a mathematician and 1040's). The student/professor relationship is as sybmiotic as Wolfe and Goodwin, prodding us out of our self-satisfying activities to pay the bills--or in my case, serve the greater good. Satisfactory.

Wolfe's character is as strong as they come, but when characters surprise us (as Wolfe frequently does), we're given hope that our situation isn't carved in stone either. Satisfactory.

You know, writing up the NSF CAREER Award is hard work. I overestimated the time I needed in the end, but underestimated how long it would take me to polish it (hint: I am not writing it in Polish, but want to make it crisp).

Since I am a big fan of Clueless, and my CAREER proposal centers around various target platforms, I am reminder of Cher's statement while driving:

You try driving in platforms

Priceless.

Our two most recent videos from Blockbuster Online were "Some Like It Hot" and "Tootsie". I guess most fans are on still on their honeymoon. These weren't anywhere near the top of our queue.

Would anyone else have noticed this, I wonder?

Still working on that honey-do list. Now we have three more ceiling fans installed than we had when we moved in (with one more to put up tonight). It turns out that the gnats are nearly as fierce with the fan on "high". I guess their little wings just get tired up.

We're getting ready for MM's parents to come visit, and hoping that my parents will too. I guess we'll see!

Other than working on the house, not much else going on, except work. Started my classes this week at UA, the students look really good. Unless you're a student reading this....in that case, "errr, these kids these days, never showing respect; I remember when we had to write compilers on the toilet walls, and we loved it."

Gotta get cable, so we can keep up with South Park.

I got really sick the day we left Berkeley to come to Tucson. Not because I was sick and tired (though I was really tired too!), but mostly because I was just worn out. Anyway, to cut a long story short, when I was packing our stuff for the car, I thought:

Aha, I should make sure that the key to the fireproof lockbox is not packed with my clothes! I will put it on my keychain.

Well, as I mentioned, I got sick. I couldn't drive, and I got motion sickness between our apartment and the landlord's house to give him back the keys. So, when we pulled up to his driveway, I realized that we hadn't taken the grocery cart with us when we left, because the bike lock key for it was on my keychain still! I thought,

Aha! I should make sure that our landlord gets the bike lock key to our leftover grocery cart! I will take it off my keychain.

Now, you may have already mentioned to yourself, "Self, I see exactly what Jonathan did!" But, of course, I was sick-as-a-dog. I mean really out of it. I mumbled something to Mary Margaret about the keys on my keychain, and slumped over while she took them over to our landlord.

For a few days, nothing happened. That's of course because we didn't need to get anything out of our lock box. Then, one magical night, just 12 hours before we left for Scotland, Mary Margaret says to me,

Jon, where's the key to the lockbox?

It's on my keychain. I was soooo clever, I put it on there before we left

Can you show it to me on here? I can't seem to find it. I recall it looks like a bike lock key...

I swore.

Now, I hope you won't judge me too much on the swearing. After all, I've known all the words ever since I went to high school, and I've got a great memory. Plus, if you count all the years I couldn't talk at all, I really deserve a few every now and then. I quickly used them up.

I saw that I had a few options:

1. I could make a fake version of MM's passport. All I would really need to do is watch the Bourne Identity and see how he did it. Oh, and I might need some Elmer's glue, but it's cheap at Wal-Marts. Ohhhh, and I could see if they had any of those fruit smoothie bars, and also get the tires rotated.
   
2. I could call a locksmith.
   
3. I could try to pick the lock.
   

Suddenly, I remembered: It's like a bike lock. Like one of those Kryptonite ones you could open with a Bic pen. Ooh, I could go to Wal-Mart and get a Bic pen.

Well, a half-hour later I was no closer to opening the box than I was to stopping swearing. I had gone through two Bic pens, and was re-evaluating my options:

1. I could get in the car and drive as fast as I could to a hotel, and escape Mary Margaret's wrath. Downside: could never come back to the house. Also, might need gas money, and could not ask without arousing suspicion.
   
2. I could call a locksmith.
   
3. I could drill the lock.
   

Hey, now there's an idea. I'm a man. I've seen Tool Time. I can probably drill this bad boy open before dawn, and even if I fail I can still call a locksmith!

It took three drill bit choices, and a hammer and tongs, but I finally got it open. You see, the thing to do is to basically peel back all of the plastic, find the piece of metal holding the top in, and rip it to the left (or right) using a screwdriver, and voila, you've opened your very own fireproof box.

Now, all I had to do was hope there wasn't a fire while we were gone.

We're in our new house now. I guess I have time to write but...oh, hold on...okay, time for the honey-do list...I'll just write a few...oh, hold on....yes Mary Margaret, I'm just abou--...OK, ok, I really gotta g---

So I am not sure whether everyone observed the "International 1/24th of a Day of Darkness" (a.k.a., Earth Hour). But, I went with a few folks from the DGC project to view the cityscape (or perhaps lack thereof) to see whether we'll see stars like we'd never seen them before. Except for the 99% of the world's population who has been outside a city for at least one clear night in their lives.

Long story short, a few places turned their lights out, but more than anything I think that the Earth Hour cemented a few things in my mind:

1. There's a lot of light out there
   
2. It's not necessarily bad
   
3. Lots of people trying to do something may still not make a dent
   
4. Earth Hour probably didn't go off with the same gusto as the founders imagined
   

I've been living in Sydney for the last few days, and will be here for a few more weeks, working on the Sydney-Berkeley Driving Team's DARPA Grand Challenge entry.

I have to say that I've been on this new Australian diet. I don't know what it is, that makes it work, but the results speak for themselves. Before leaving for Oz, I weighed myself and came in at around 194.5. However, stepping on a scale here put me in at 88.0 even.

Not only that, but my biking speeds have improved dramatically. I averaged about 11/hr on my trips to/from Berkeley and my house, but here my biking velocity regularly clocks in somewhere around 18-19.

That's so awesome! I recommend everyone going on the Australian diet as well.