Sub Ubi

For now, it feels like I’m still at camp. After five years abroad, we’ve moved back to the US, have ravaged craigslist for all it is worth, and are slowly putting a “home” back together. Perhaps, in a few months time, I’ll be more settled in, and I’ll start to miss England in ernest. For now, everything is still new, and just a bit overwhelming at times. But the move was the right one at the right time, and as fast a move as it was, it does feel good.

Part of what has made this move so excellent for me are the people I’ve met at Olin. I don’t know what kinds of stories people have heard or told about the school, but I find that many of the things I loved about Kenyon I have found here. The students are engaged and going somewhere—and sometimes they’re doubling back to try another path, but that’s just fine. Likewise, the faculty are shaping the school with and through their students, helping to make it an exciting and energizing place to be. The staff, like any great institution, provide a foundation for both the students and the faculty that has been nothing but excellent in my experience so far.

The Academic and Campus Center, from the Olin Center

Wednesdays are the longest day in my schedule: independent study meetings, class, faculty meetings, and touching base with the SCOPE team all fell on that day. Carrie and I decided it would be easier/faster if she picked me up instead of my walking home, so I had a few minutes to enjoy the warm, autumn air before she arrived. On my way out the door, I decided to grab my camera, and shoot a few pictures of the campus.

The Olin Center, from the quad

Despite the busy schedule, it was a good day. I think that says something about a place, that you can be busy and engaged all day long, and come out… if not refreshed, at least feeling good about the day. And coming out to a warm, autumn night, where the air is full of the intoxicating smells of the changing of seasons, it really was marvelous. The pictures don’t capture this at all, nor do these words—it was just so relaxing, to just stand there and enjoy the moment.

In response to my hand-made schedule, a comment was raised:

um… google calendar?

In a nutshell, technology generally sucks. To use Google Calendar, I need to have a laptop. Or a desktop. Or some computer nearby. My laptop weighs 4-5 pounds, has a short (3-4 hour) battery life, requires network access, is expensive if I drop it, a pain when it is stolen, and fares poorly if I wipe out on my bike while riding to work.

Now, lets compare that with a paper scheduler. First, it always has enough power—because it requires none. Second, it can survive drops from great heights or being crushed in my backpack if I leave my bicycle in a less-than-graceful manner; at worst, I might have to replace the binder. Third, it is easy to carry and can be used in meetings without disrupting anything. Fourth, it is unlikely to be stolen if I leave it somewhere, as it has no cash value. Fifth, it is easy to back up if I am so inclined (photocopy), and requires no special supporting technology to make things work. Indeed, as a near-fifth, sharing it is easy enough, as I can make copies for others (as I did with my senior project team). Sixth, scheduling is easy: I hand it to a student, and with tools they all possess or that I can freely lend them (a pen or pencil), they can write their name into appropriate slots for meeting arrangement—no pesky GMail accounts required!

The list goes on and on. I’ve been through PDAs, various desktop calendaring apps, web-based solutions… I’ve even built and installed calendar aggregation tools on this server. In the end, the fact is, my paper organizer goes back-and-forth to work, as well as crosses oceans, far more gracefully (and with less hassle) than my laptop ever will.

There you go. You’ve got your usability constraints. Suggest a better digital alternative, and I’m good to go. Your solution must, however, address all of my needs.

Besides, as one of my independent study students said, “PostIts and highlighters are fun!”

http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/fur/432168089.html

I have a lot of crap on my desktop.

I think that I need to do some cleanup on my laptop. The desktop is just garbage, and the Documents folder is mostly virtual machines. Time to buy some external drives.

My schedule is now online.

http://www.jadud.com/people/mcj/files/jadud-schedule.pdf

When I update this, I’ll post updated versions of the PDF, so it should always be up-to-date.

(Yes, my schedule is made with little bits of PostIt on a grid I drew all by myself. It was a therapeutic process. Next time, I will find a way to work crayons into the process, as I believe they have greater creative potential than PostIts.)

Two Olin students passed away this week.

http://www.townonline.com/dover/homepage/x641943083

http://www.townonline.com/dover/homepage/x473075378

There is so much to say, but for me, not now. Someday, the words may be easier.

Matt was in my class. He is missed.

I really have to say, version control can be a wonderful thing in the classroom context.

I’m 1/3rd of the way through marking my student’s homeworks. However, I didn’t struggle with some handin system, or having them send me email, or anything like that.

You see, every student has a repository.

They do their work, commit it into their repository, and when they’re done, they just walk away (after their final commit). This means that their HW is backed up from their laptop, and it is sitting safely on a remote server.

It also means that I can check out their repository. So, before I did the grading, I did an ‘update’ on each of their repositories, so I got the most recent version of their code. To make comments in their files, I used block comments:

#| 20070909 MCJ
... some comment here
|#

and then created a text file in their repos with any additional comments.

Now, they don’t all have commit lists, so they don’t automatically get an email when I’m done. In the future, I may set that up. Not today, though. I manually send each one an email to say I’m done, and they can do an ‘update’ to get the most recent changes.

All-in-all, it’s a great workflow. I can improve it in a few different ways, but overall, it’s efficient for me, they’re getting good practice using a repository as part of their programming practice, and it provides a good, hard-to-loose communications channel regarding their feedback.

I think it’s awesome, even if no one else does.

It’s amazing how moving back to the USA is like starting over. That is, how we really are starting out from near-scratch… again…

Day 0

Carrie arrived from Ohio (via Ithaca, NY) with a car full of stuffs. In particular, she brought a number of kitchen-related items from storage. I had picked up the keys to the apartment Friday morning, and so we were able to move in when she arrived. We dumped stuff from the car, went grocery shopping (before the store closed—we needed basics, like milk and toilet paper), and then went out to eat.

That was Friday. A full day for me at school, and a day of driving for Carrie.

Day 1

On Saturday, I got up early and did some online research. We then shipped out into the wilds of the surrounding suburbs to find furniture stores. We thought we were going to buy a futon to sleep on for the next year. Basically, it seemed like a cheap solution, and we do have a full-size bed in storage that it wasn’t worth bringing out. (A UHaul costs $1000 from Ohio to Boston, which seemed like overkill for what we might bring beyond our kitchen-ware.)

The first store we hit had no futons on display, but we decided to try some mattresses out just the same. We started to realize that we might do better just buying a bed. We tried out some mattresses, and decided that we liked the $2000 ones. We thought we could deal with the $700 set that was on sale… but in the name of due-dilligence, we should go across the street (crossing Route 9 is not easy) and see what we could find.

We went across the street to Sleepy’s (1400 Worcester, Natick, MA—the little shopping baskets off to the left). We were treated to some kind of high-tech sleep-science-device, which rotated a 3D image of a humanoid around on a graphic equalizer. This science-technology told the salesman (Joe) what kind bed we should get. Oddly enough, it said Carrie and I should get this incredibly comfortable, $3000 bed.

Map of our adventure space these last few days.
Click to enlarge.

Admittedly, it was the bomb. I mean, it was really, really comfortable.

And it was not in the cards. We ended up with a very nice queen-sized set (that cost only a little more than the full that we bought five years ago), and a nice futon at a good, discounted rate. Both are pieces we’ll want to keep past this year. With 0% over the year, we’ll have it paid off in no-time. Pankaj and Jen joined us for dinner that night, and while they were there, our new bed arrived. So, Carrie and I were able to sleep peacefully and very comfortably on a new bed, as opposed to an air mattress. Good for one person, not so much for two.

Day 2

The next day (Sunday), I was up early again, and in the office by around 8AM. I pounded through freecycle and craigslist for an hour-and-a-half, and ultimately came up with a few possible hits. I then woke Carrie up, and we looked at these together. Two emails went out on two possible table-and-chair sets. (We had a picnic dinner Saturday night with our friends on the floor of our “dining room”.) About 30 minutes later, I got a hit on the second choice of these two: a butcher-block table with four chairs, a bit dinged up, but $100. We agreed to come out and see them that day (so as to impress upon the seller that we were serious), and were out the door by noon.

After buying a map (navigating this city really is cracked out), we took off for Brighton (blue pushpin on map), and decided to use the highways—95 and the Mass Pike. My original intent was to go across town on smaller streets, but this was faster, and easier… since we had good instructions from the Mass Pike exit. We arrived just on time, despite having had to find cash. (Did you know that UK debit cards opened the doors at banks where the ATM is in the foyer? I had no idea until today…)

The table looked good. The amazing thing was getting it into the Echo. At 60″ x 36″ inches, it looked like a no-go. As it turns out, if you put the back seats down in a Toyota Echo, you can just fit that in. We then put two chairs in the back on top of the table, dismantled the other two (and put them in the trunk), and the table legs were thrown in anywhere we wanted. We had space to spare, which is hard to believe given that the Echo is not a terribly large car.

Day 2.5

After returning with the table, we headed out again in search of food-type things (food icons on map). Intending to head to Whole Foods, we were sidetracked by a wonderful farm market, and picked up many fresh fruits and vegetables to bring home for cooking with over the next few days. The market is only five minutes away, meaning we have a grocery and Trader Joe’s within 5 minutes walk, a farm market at 5 minutes drive, and a Whole Foods at about 8-10 minutes drive. All told, short distances with minimal traffic to tasty foods. (We sidetracked at Whole Foods as well.)

After picking up veggies, we headed out in search of knives. (Cooking without knives is tricky.) We checked out a few stores (I hope I never have to go to Natick Mall again, evah), and ultimately Carrie chose a few (5″ santoku, paring knife, bread knife), while I signed us up for ADSL ($40/month, 3 megabit down, 768 up). What was great is that we did not need a landline to get the net—which, with Verizon, can be pretty steep for basic phone service.

We headed home, stopped off at the grocery for a few more staple items—remember, we have nothing in this apartment… it really is starting life over… and then came home. Dinner was breaded eggplant with fresh tomatoes, spinach salad with sauteed mushrooms, and a tasty regional beer.

End Day 2

As it stands, I’m up past my bedtime. In the past two days, we’ve managed to get almost all of the essentials picked up for our new place: bed, table, knives, food, Internet. Tomorrow is a uni-wide brunch, and I need to work through all of the homework I assigned my students, and write some other code besides. (I could possibly get away with not working the homework, having worked it previously for other classes—but I like to refresh myself on the work I’m assigning my students every now and then.)

Busy. Ever since arriving in Boston we’ve kept busy, but it had certainly been fun so far.